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PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. 





VI 









. 

' 





















RUDYARD KIPLING 



THE 
PHANTOM 
PICKSHAW 


RUDYHPD 

Kipling 

// 


PHILADELPHIA 
Henry Altepius 


1 

* 

C s>- tt 


13993 


Copyright, 1898, by Henry Altemus. 



He Va/^q V O v °^ 

heniKJltemus, manif^cturbr, Philadelphia. 

2nd COPY, 


i89£. 


PREFACE 


This is not exactly a book of downright ghost-stories 
as the cover makes believe. It is rather a collection of 
facts that never quite explained themselves. All that 
the collector is certain of is, that one man insisted upon 
dying because he believed himself to be haunted; an- 
other man either made up a wonderful lie and stuck to 
it, or visited a very strange place; while the third man 
was indubitably crucified by some person or persons 
unknown, and gave an extraordinary account of him- 
self. 

The peculiarity of ghost-stories is that they are never 
told first-hand. I have managed, with -infinite trouble, 
to secure one exception to this rule. It is not a very 
good specimen, but you can credit it from beginning to 
end. The other three stories you must take on trust; 
as I did. 

RUDYARD KIPLING. 




















































































































































CONTENTS. 

The Phantom Rickshaw 5 

/ The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes . 43 

The Man Who Would Be King ... 83 

My Own True Ghost Story 143 

His Majesty the King 159 

Wee Willie Winkie 179 

Baa, Baa, Black Sheep 199 





















































































































































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THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. 


May no dreams disturb my rest, 

Nor Powers of Darkness me molest. 

Evening Hymn. 

One of the few advantages that India has over 
England is a great Knowability. After five 
years’ service a man is directly or indirectly 
acquainted with the two or three hundred 
Civilians in his Province, all the Messes of ten or 
twelve Regiments and Batteries, and some fifteen 
hundred other people of the non-official caste. 
In ten years his knowledge should be doubled , 1 
and at the end of twenty he knows, or knows 
something about, every Englishman in the Em- 
pire, and may travel anywhere and everywhere 
without paying hotel-bills. 

Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a 
right have, even within my memory, blunted this 
open-heartedness, but none the less to-day, if you 
belong to the Inner Circle and are neither a Bear 
nor a Black Sheep, all houses are open to you, 
and our small world is very, very kind and help- 
ful. 


6 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


Rickett of Kamartha stayed with . Polder of 
Kumaon some fifteen years ago. He meant to 
stay two nights, but was knocked down by rheu- 
matic fever, and for six weeks disorganized 
Polder’s establishment, stopped Polder’s work, 
and nearly died in Polder’s bedroom. Polder 
behaved as though he had been placed under 
eternal obligation by Rickett, and yearly sends 
the little Ricketts a box of presents and toys. It 
is the same everywhere. The men who do not 
take the trouble to conceal from you their 
opinion that you are an incompetent ass, and the 
women who blacken your character and misun- 
derstand your wife’s amusements, will work 
themselves to the bone in your behalf if you fall 
sick or into serious trouble. 

Heatherlegh, the Doctor, kept, in addition to 
his regular practice, an hospital on his private ac- 
count — an arrangement of loose boxes for Incur- 
ables, his friend called it — but it was really a sort 
of fitting-up shed for craft that had been dam- 
aged by stress of weather. The weather in India 
is often sultry, and since the tale of bricks is al- 
ways a fixed quantity, and the only liberty 
allowed is permission to work overtime and get 
no thanks, men occasionally break down and be- 
come as mixed as the metaphors in this sentence. 

Heatherlegh is the dearest doctor that ever 
was, and his invariable prescriptions to all his 
patients is, “lie low, go slow, and keep cool.” He 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


7 


says that more men are killed by overwork than 
the importance of this world justifies. He main- 
tains that overwork slew Pansay, who died un- 
der his hands about three years ago. He has, of 
course, the right to speak authoritatively, and he 
laughs at my theory that there was a crack in 
Pansay’s head, and a little bit of the Dark World 
came through and pressed him to death. “Pan- 
say went off the handle,” says Heatherlegh, 
“after the stimulus of long leave at Home. He 
may or he may not have behaved like a black- 
guard to Mrs. Keith-Wessington. My notion is 
that the work of the Katabundi Settlement ran 
him off his legs, and that he took to brooding 
and making much of an ordinary P. & O. flirta- 
tion. He certainly was engaged to Miss Man- 
nering, and she certainly broke off the engage- 
ment. Then he took a feverish chill and all that 
nonsense about ghosts developed. Overwork 
started his illness, kept it alight, and killed him,' 
poor devil. Write him off to the System — one 
man to take the work of two and a half men.” 

I do not believe this. I used to sit up with 
Pansay sometimes when Heatherlegh was called 
out to patients, and I happened to be within 
claim. The man would make me most unhappy 
by describing in a low, even voice, the procession 
that was always passing at the bottom of his bed. 
He had a sick man’s command of language. 
When he recovered I suggested that he should 


8 


THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. 


write out the whole affair from beginning to end, 
knowing that ink might assist him to ease his 
mind. When little boys have learned a new bad 
word they are never happy till they have chalked 
it up on a door. And this also is Literature. 

He was in a high fever while he was writing, 
and the blood-and-thunder Magazine diction he 
adopted did not calm him. Two months after- 
Avards he was reported fit for duty, but, in spite 
of the fact that he was urgently needed to help 
an undermanned Commission stagger through a 
deficit, he preferred to die; vowing at the last 
that he was hagridden. I got his manuscript be- 
fore he died, and this is his version of the affair, 
dated 1885: — 

My doctor tells me that I need rest and change 
of air. It is not improbable that I shall get both 
ere long — rest that neither the red-coated mes- 
senger nor the mid-day gun can break, and 
change of air far beyond that which any home- 
ward-bound steamer can give me. In the mean- 
time I am resolved to stay where I am; and, in 
flat defiance of my doctor’s orders, to take all the 
world into my confidence. You shall learn for 
yourselves the precise nature of my malady; and 
- shall, too, judge for yourselves whether any man 
born of woman on this weary earth was ever so 
tormented as I. 

Speaking now as a condemned criminal might 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


9 


speak ere the drop-bolts are drawn, my story, 
wild and hideously improbable as it may appear, 
demands at least attention. That it will ever re- 
ceive credence I utterly disbelieve. Two months 
ago I should have scouted as mad or drunk the 
man who had dared tell me the like. Two 
months ago I was the happiest man in India. 
To-day, from Peshawar to the sea, there is no 
one more wretched. My doctor and I are the 
only two who know this. His explanation is, 
that my brain, digestion, and eyesight are all 
slightly affected; giving rise to my frequent and 
persistent “delusions.” Delusions, indeed! I 
call him a fool; but he attends me still with the 
same unwearied smile, the same bland profes- 
sional manner, the same neatly trimmed red 
whiskers, till I begin to suspect that I am an un- 
grateful, evil-tempered invalid. But you shall 
judge for yourselves. 

Three years ago it was my fortune — my great 
misfortune — to sail from Gravesend to Bombay, 
on return from long leave, with one Agnes 
Iveith- Wessington, wife of an officer on the 
Bombay side. It does not in the least concern 
you to know wjiat manner of woman she was. 
Be content with the knowledge that, ere the voy- 
age had ended, both she and I were desperately 
and unreasoningly in love with one another. 
Heaven knows that I can make the admission 
now without one particle of vanity. In matters 


10 


THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW. 


of this sort there is always one who gives and 
another who accepts. From the first day of our 
ill-omened attachment, I was conscious that 
Agnes’s passion was a stronger, a more domin- 
ant, and — if I may use the expression — a purer 
sentiment than mine. Whether she recognized 
the fact then, I do not know. Afterwards it was 
bitterly plain to both of us. 

Arrived at Bombay in the spring of the year, 
we went our respective ways, to meet no more 
for the next three or four months, when my leave 
and her love took us both to Simla. There we 
spent the season together; and there my fire of 
straw burnt itself out to a pitiful end with the 
closing year. I attempt no excuse. I make no 
apology. Mrs. Wessington had given up much 
for my sake, and was prepared to give up all. 
From my own lips, in August, 1882, she learnt 
that I was sick of her presence, tired of her com- 
pany, and weary of the sound of her voice.. 
Ninety-nine women out of a hundred would have 
wearied of me as I wearied of them; seventy-five 
of that number would have promptly avenged 
themselves by active and obtrusive flirtation with 
other men. Mrs. Wessington was the hundredth 
On her neither my openly expressed aversion nor 
the cutting brutalities with which I garnished 
our interviews had the least effect. 

“Jack, darling!” was her one eternal cuckoo 
cry: “I’m sure it’s all a mistake — a hideous mis- 


THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW. 


II 


take; and we’ll be good friends again some day. 
Please forgive me, Jack, dear.” 

I was the offender, and I knew it. That knowl- 
edge transformed my pity into passive endur- 
ance, and, eventually, into blind hate — the same 
instinct, I suppose, which prompts a man to 
savagely stamp on the spider he has but half 
killed. And with this hate in my bosom the sea- 
son of 1882 came to an end. 

Next year we met again at Simla — she with 
her monotonous face and timid attempts at re- 
conciliation, and I with loathing of her in every 
fibre of my frame. Several times I could not 
avoid meeting her alone; and on each occasion 
her words were identically the same. Still the 
unreasoning wail that it was all a “mistake;” and 
still the hope of eventually “making friends.” I 
might have seen, had I cared to look, that that 
liope only was keeping her alive. She grew more 
wan and thin month by month. You will agree 
with me, at least, that such conduct would have 
driven any one to despair. It was uncalled for; 
childish, unwomanly. I maintain that she was 
much to blame. And again, sometimes, in the 
black, fever-stricken night-watches, I have be- 
gun to think that I might have been a little 
kinder to her. But that really is a “delusion.” I 
could not have continued pretending to love her 
when I didn’t, could I? It would have been un- 
fair to us both. 


12 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


Last year we met again — on the same terms as 
before. The same weary appeals, and the same 
curt answers from my lips. At least I would 
make her see how wholly wrong and hopeless 
were her attempts at resuming the old relation- 
ship. As the season wore on, we fell apart — that 
is to say, she found it difficult to meet me, for I 
had other and more absorbing interests to attend 
to. When I think it over quietly in my sick- 
room, the season of 1884 seems a confused night- 
mare wherein light and shade were fantastically 
intermingled — my courtship of little Kitty Man- 
nering; my hopes, doubts, and fears; our long 
rides together; my trembling avowal of attach- 
ment; her reply; and now and again a vision of 
a white face flitting by in the ’rickshaw with the 
black and white liveries I once watched for so 
earnestly; the wave of Mrs. Wessington’s gloved 
hand; and, when she met me alone, which was 
but seldom, the irksome monotony of her appeal. 
I loved Kitty Mannering; honestly, heartily 
loved her, and with my love for her grew my 
hatred for Agnes. In August Kitty and I were 
engaged. The next day I met those accursed 
“magpie” jhampanies at the back of Jakko, and, 
moved by some passing sentiment of pity, 
stopped to tell Mrs. Wessington everything. She 
knew it already. 

“So I hear you’re engaged, Jack dear.” Then, 
without a moment’s pause: — “I’m sure it’s all a 


THE PHANTOM ' RICKSHAW . 


13 

mistake — a hideous mistake. We shall be as 
good friends some day, Jack, as we ever were.” 

My answer might have made even a man 
wince. It cut the dying woman before me like 
the blow of a whip. “Please forgive me, Jack; I 
didn’t mean to make you angry; but it’s true, it’s 
true!” 

And Mrs. Wessington broke down completely. 
I turned away and left her to finish her journey 
in peace, feeling, but only for a moment or two, 
that I had been an unutterably mean hound. I 
looked back, and saw that she had turned her 
'rickshaw with the idea, I suppose, of overtaking 
me. 

The scene and its surroundings were photo- 
graphed on my memory. The rain-swept sky 
(we were at the end of the wet weather), the sod- 
den, dingy pines, the muddy road, and the black 
dowder-riven cliffs formed a gloomy background 
against which the black and white liveries of the 
jhampanics , the yellow-panelled ’rickshaw and 
Mrs. Wessington’s down-bowed golden head 
stood out clearly. She was holding her handker- 
chief in her left hand and was leaning back ex- 
hausted against the ’rickshaw cushions. I turned 
my horse up a bypath near the Sanjowlie Reser- 
voir and literally ran away. Once I fancied 1 
heard a faint call of “Jack!” This may have been 
imagination. I never stopped to verify it. Ten 
minutes later I came across Kitty on horseback; 


14 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


and, in the delight of a long ride with her, forgot 
all about the interview. 

A week later Mrs. Wessington died, and the 
inexpressible burden of her existence was re- 
moved from my life. I went Plainsward perfectly 
happy. Before three months were over I had 
forgotten all about her, except that at times the 
discovery of some of her old letters reminded me 
unpleasantly of our bygone relationship. By 
January I had disinterred what was left of our 
correspondence from among my scattered be- 
longings and had burnt it. At the beginning of 
April of this year, 1885, I was at Simla — semi- 
deserted Simla — once more, and was deep in 
lover’s talks and walks with Kitty. It was de- 
cided that we should be married at the end of 
June. You will understand, therefore, that, lov- 
ing Kitty as I did, I am not saying too much 
when I pronuonce myself to have been, at that 
time, the happiest man in India. 

Fourteen delightful days passed almost before 
I noticed their flight. Then, aroused to the 
sense of what was proper among mortals circum- 
stanced as we were, I pointed out to Kitty that 
an engagement ring was the outward and visible 
sign of her dignity as an engaged girl; and that 
she must forthwith come to Hamilton’s to be 
measured for one. Up to that moment, I give 
you my word, we had completely forgotten so 
trivial a matter. To Hamilton’s we acordingly 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


15 


went on the 15th of April, 1885. Remember that 
— whatever my doctor may say to the contrary — 
I was then in perfect health, enjoying a well- 
balanced mind and an absolutely tranquil spirit. 
Kitty and I entered Hamilton’s shop together, 
and there, regardless of the order of affairs, I 
measured Kitty for the ring in the presence of 
the amused assistant. The ring was a saphire 
with two diamonds. We then rode out down the 
slope that leads to the Combermere Bridge and 
Peliti’s shop. 

While my Waler was cautiously feeling his 
way over the loose shale, and Kitty was laughing 
and chattering at my side — while all Simla, that 
is to say as much of it as had then come from the 
Plains, was grouped round the Reading-room 
and Peliti’s veranda, — I was aware that some 
one, apparently at a vast distance, was calling me 
by my Christian name. It struck me that I had 
heard the voice before, but when and where I 
could not at once determine. In the short space 
it took to cover the road between the path from 
Hamilton’s shop and the first plank of the Com- 
bermere Bridge I had thought over half a dozen 
people who might have committed such a sole- 
cism, and had eventually decided that it must 
have been some singing in my ears. Immediately 
opposite Peliti’s shop my eye was arrested by 
the sight of four jhampanies in “magpie” livery, 
pulling a yellow-panelled, cheap, bazar ’rickshaw. 


l6 THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 

In a moment my mind flew back to the previous 
season and Mrs. Wessington with a sense of 
irritation and disgust. Was it not enough that 
the woman was dead and done with, without her 
black and white servitors reappearing to spoil 
the day’s happiness? Whoever employed them 
now, I thought I would call upon, and ask as a 
personal favor to changes her jhampcmies ’ livery. 
I would hire the men myself, and, if necessary, 
buy their coats from off their backs. It is im- 
possible to say here what a flood of undesirable 
memories their presence evoked. 

“Kitty,” I cried, “there are poor Mrs. Wess- 
ington’s jhampanies turned up again! I wonder 
who has them now?” 

Kitty had known Mrs. Wessington slightly 
last season, and had always been interested in the 
sickly woman. 

“What? Where?” she asked. “'I can’t see 
them anywhere.” 

Even as she spoke, her horse, swerving from a 
laden mule, threw himself directly in front of the 
advancing ’rickshaw. I had scarcely time to 
utter a word of warning, when, to my unutter- 
able horror, horse and rider passed through men 
and carriage as if they had been thin air. 

“What’s the matter?” cried Kitty; “what made 
you call out so foolishly, Jack? If I am engaged 
I don’t want all creation to know about it. There 
was lots of space between the mule and tha 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


1 7 


veranda; and, if you think I can’t ride — There!" 

Whereupon wilful Kitty set off, her dainty 
little head in the air, at a hand-gallop in the 
direction of the Band-stand; fully expecting, as 
she herself afterwards told me, that I should fol- 
low her. What was the matter? Nothing in- 
deed. Either that I was mad or drunk, or that 
Simla was haunted with devils. I reined in my 
impatient cob, and turned round. The ’rickshaw 
had turned too, and now stood immediately 
facing me, near the left railing of the Comber- 
mere Bridge. 

“Jack! Jack, darling!” (There was no mistake 
about the words this time: they rang through my 
brain as if they had been shouted in my ear.) 
“It’s some hideous mistake, I’m sure. Please 
forgive me, Jack, and let’s be friends again.” 

The ’rickshaw-hood had fallen back, and in- 
side, as I hope and pray daily for the death I 
dread by night, sat Mrs. Keith-Wessington, 
handkerchief in hand, and golden head bowed on 
her breast. 

How long^I stared motionless I do not know. 
Finally, I was aroused by my syce taking the 
Waler’s bridle and asking whether I was ill. 
From the horrible to the eommonplaee is but a 
step. I tumbled off my horse and dashed, half, 
fainting, into Peliti’s for a glass of cherry-brandy. 
There two or three conples were gathered round 
the coffee-tables discusisng file gossip of the day. 


i8 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


Their trivialities were more comforting to me 
just then than the consolations of religion could 
have been. I plunged into the midst of the con- 
versation at once; chatted, laughed, and jested 
with a face (when I caught a glimpse of it in a 
mirror) as white and drawn as that of a corpse. 
Three or four men noticed my condition; and, 
evidently setting it down to the results of over- 
many pegs, charitably endeavored to draw me 
apart from the rest of the loungers. But I re- 
fused to be led away. I wanted the company of 
my kind — as a child rushes into the midst of the 
dinner-party after a fright in the dark. I must 
have talked for about ten minutes or so, though 
it seemed an eternity to me, when I heard Kitty’s 
clear voice outside inquiring for me. In another 
minute she had entered the shop, prepared to 
roundly upbraid me for failing so signally in my 
duties. Something in my face stopped her. 

“Why, Jack,” she cried, “what have you been 
doing? What has happened? Are you ill?” 
Thus driven into a direct lie, I said that the sun 
had been a little too much for me. It was close 
upon five o’clock of a cloudy April afternoon, 
and the sun had been hidden all day. I saw my 
mistake as soon as the words were out of my 
mouth: attempted to recover it; blundered hope- 
lessly and followed Kitty in a regal rage, out of 
doors, amid the smiles of my acquaintances. I 
made some excuse (I have forgotten what) on 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


19 


the score of my feeling faint; and cantered away 
to my hotel, leaving Kitty to finish the ride by 
herself. 

In my room I sat down and tried calmly to 
reason out the matter. Here was I, Theobald 
Jack Pansay, a well-educated Bengal Civilian in 
the year of grace 1885, presumably sane, certainly 
healthy, driven in terror from my sweetheart’s 
side by the apparition of a woman who had been 
dead and buried eight months ago. These were 
facts that I could not blink. Nothing was 
further from my thoughts than any memory of 
Mrs. Wessington when Kitty and I left Hamil- 
ton’s shop. Nothing was more utterly common- 
place than the stretch of wall opposite Peliti’s. 
It was broad daylight. The road was full of 
people; and yet here, look you, in defiance of 
every law of probability, in direct outrage of Na- 
ture’s ordinance, there had appeared to me a face 
from the grave. 

Kitty’s Arab had gone through the ’rickshaw: 
so that my first hope that some woman marvel- 
lously like Mrs. Wessington had hired the car- 
riage and the coolies with their old livery was 
lost. Again and again I went round this tread- 
mill of thought; and again and again gave up 
baffled and in despair. The voice was as inex- 
plicable as the apparition. I had originally some 
wild notion of confiding it all to Kitty; of 
begging her to marry me at once; and in her 


20 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


arms defying the ghostly occupant of the ’rick- 
shaw. “After all,” I argued, “the presence of 
the ’rickshaw is in itself enough to prove the 
existence of a spectral illusion. One may see 
ghosts of men and women, but surely never of 
coolies and carriages. The whole thing is absurd. 
Fancy the ghost of a hillman!” 

Next morning I sent a penitent note to Kitty, 
imploring her to overlook my strange conduct of 
the previous afternoon.; My Divinity was still 
very wroth, and a personal apology was neces- 
sary. I explained, with a fluency born of night- 
long pondering over a falsehood, that I had been 
attacked with a sudden palpitation of the heart 
— the result of indigestion. This eminently 
practical solution had its effect; and Kitty and I 
rode out that afternoon with the shadow of my 
first lie dividing us. 

Nothing would please her save a canter round 
Jakko. With my nerves still unstrung from the 
previous night I feebly protested against the 
notion, suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the 
Boileaugunge road — anything rather than the 
Jakko round. Kitty was angry and a little hurt: 
so I yielded from fear of provoking further mis- 
understanding, and we set out together towards 
Chota Simla. We walked a greater part of the 
way, and, according to our custom, cantered 
from a mile or so below the Convent to the 
stretch of level road by the Sanjowlie Reservoir. 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


21 


The wretched horses appeared to fly, and my 
heart beat quicker and quicker as we neared the 
crest of the ascent. My mind had been full of 
Mrs. Wessington all the afternoon; and every 
inch of the Jakko road bore witness to our old- 
time walks and talks. The bowlders were full of 
it; the pines sang it aloud overhead; the rain-fed 
torrents giggled and chuckled unseen over the 
shameful story; and the wind in my ears chanted 
the inquity aloud. 

As a fitting climax, in the middle of the level, 
men call the Ladies’ Mile, the Horror was await- 
ing me. No other ’rickshaw was in sight — only 
the four black and white jhampanies, the yellow- 
panelled carriage, and the golden head of the 
woman within — all apparently just as I had left 
them eight months and one fortnight ago! For 
an instant I fancied that Kitty must see what I 
saw — we were so marvellously sympathetic in all 
things. Her next words undeceived me — “Not 
a soul in sight! Come along, Jack, and I’ll race 
you to the Reservoir buildings!” Her wiry little 
Arab was off like a bird, my Waler following 
close behind, and in this order we dashed under 
the cliffs. Half a minute brought us within fifty 
yards of the ’rickshaw. I pulled my Waler and 
fell back a little. The ’rickshaw was directly in 
the middle of the road; and once more the Arab 
passed through it, my horse following. “Jack! 
Jack dear! Please forgive me,” rang with a wail 


22 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


in my ears, and, after an interval: — “It’s all a 
mistake, a hideous mistake!” 

I spurred my horse like a man possessed. 
When I turned my head at the Reservoir works, 
the black and white liveries were still waiting — 
patiently waiting — under the gray hillside, and 
the wind brought me a mocking echo of the 
words I had just heard. Kitty bantered me a 
good deal on my silence throughout the remain- 
der of the ride. I had been talking up till then 
wildly and at random. To save my life I could 
not speak afterwards, naturally, and from San- 
jowlie to the Church wisely held my tongue. 

I was to dine with the Mannerings that night, 
and had barely time to canter home to dress. On 
the road to Elysium Hill I overheard two men 
talking together in the dusk. — “It’s a curious 
thing,” said one, “how completely all trace of it 
disappeared You know my wife was insanely 
fond of the woman (’never could see anything in 
her myself), and wanted me to pick up her old 
’rickshaw and coolies if they were to be got for 
love or money. Morbid sort of fancy I call it; 
hut I’ve got to do what Memsahib tells me. 
Would you believe that the man she hired it 
from tells me that all four of the men — they were 
brothers — died of cholera on the way to Hard- 
war, poor devils; and the ’rickshaw has been 
broken up by the man himseslf. ‘Told me he 
never used a dead Mcmscthib’s ’rickshaw. ’Spoilt 


THE PHANTOM ' RICKSHAW . 


23 


his luck. Queer notion, wasn’t it? Fancy poor 
little Mrs. Wessington spoiling any one’s luck 
except her own!” I laughed aloud at this point; 
and my laugh jarred on me as I uttered it. So 
there were ghosts of ’rickshaws after all, and 
ghostly employments in the other world! How 
much did Mrs. Wessington give her men? What 
were their hours? Where did they, go? 

And for visible answer to my last question I 
saw the infernal Thing blocking my path in the 
twilight. The dead travel fast, and by short cuts 
unknown to ordinary coolies. I laughed aloud 
a second time and checked my laughter sud- 
denly, for I was afraid I was going mad. Mad 
to a certain extent I must have been, for I recol- 
lect that I reined in my horse at the head of the 
’rickshaw, and politely wished Mrs. Wessington 
“Good-evening.” Her answer was one I knew 
only too well. I listened to the end; and replied 
that I had heard it all before, but should be de- 
lighted if she had anything further to say. Some 
malignant devil stronger than I must have 
entered into me that evening, for I have a dim 
recollection of talking the commonplaces of the 
day for five minutes to the Thing in front of me. 

“Mad as a hatter, poor devil — or drunk. Max, 
try and get him to come home.” 

Surely that was not Mrs. Wessington’s voice! 
The two men had overheard me speaking to the 
empty air, and had returned to look after me. 


24 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


They were very kind and considerate, and from 
their words evidently gathered that I was ex- 
tremely drunk. I thanked them confusedly and 
cantered away to my hotel, there changed, and 
arrived at the Mannerings’ ten minutes late. I 
pleaded the darkness of the night as an excuse; 
was rebuked by Kitty for my unlover-like tardi- 
ness; and sat, down. 

The conversation had already become general ; 
and under cover of it, I was addressing some 
tender small talk to my sweetheart, when I was 
aware that at the further end of the table a short 
red-whiskered man was describing, with much 
broidery, his encounter with a mad unknown that 
evening. 

A few sentences convinced me that he was re- 
peating the incident of half an hour ago. In the 
middle of the story he looked round for applause, 
as professional story-tellers do, caught my eye, 
and straightway collapsed. There was a mo- 
ment’s awkward silence, and the red-whiskered 
man muttered something to the effect that he had 
“forgotten the rest,” thereby sacrificing a reputa- 
tion as a good story-teller which he had built up 
for six seasons past. I blessed him from the 
bottom of my heart, and — went on with my fish. 

In the fulness of time that dinner came to an 
end; and with genuine regret I tore myself away 
from Kitty — as certain as I was of my own exist- 
ence that It would be waiting for me outside the 


, THE PHANTOM * RICKSHAW . 


25 


door. The red-whiskered man, who had been 
introduced to me as Dr. Heatherlegh of Simla, 
volunteered to bear me company as far as our 
roads lay together. I accepted his offer with 
gratitude. 

My instinct had not deceived me. It lay in 
readiness in the Mall, and, in what seemed devil- 
ish mockery of our ways, with a lighted head- 
lamp. The red-whiskered man went to the point 
at once, in a manner that showed he had been 
thinking over it all dinner time. 

“I say, Pansay, what the deuce was the matter 
with you this evening on the Elysium road?” 
The suddenness of the question wrenched an 
answer from me before I was aware. 

“That!” said I, pointing to It. 

“ That may be either D. T. or Eyes for aught 
I know. Now you don’t liquor. I saw as much 
at dinner, so it can’t be D. T. There’s nothing 
whatever where you’re pointing, though you’re 
sweating and trembling with fright like a scared 
pony. Therefore, I conclude that it’s Eyes. 
And I ought to understand all about them. 
Come along home with me. I’m on the Bless- 
ington lower road.” 

To my intense delight the ’rickshaw, instead 
of waiting for us, kept about twenty yards ahead 
— and this, too, whether we walked, trotted, or 
cantered. In the course of that long night ride 


26 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


I had told my companion almost as much as I 
have told you here. 

“Well, you’ve spoilt one of the best tales I’ve 
ever laid tongue to,” said he, “but I’ll forgive 
you for the sake of what you’ve gone through. 
Now come home and do what I tell you; and 
when I’ve cured you, young man, let this be a 
lesson to you to steer clear of women- and in- 
digestible food till the day of your death.” 

The ’rickshaw kept steady in front; and my 
red-whiskered friend seemed to derive great 
pleasure from my account of its exact where- 
abouts. 

“Eyes, Pansay — all Eyes, Brain, and Stomach. 
And the greatest of these three is Stomach. 
You’ve too much conceited Brain, too little 
Stomach, and thoroughly unhealthy Eyes. Get 
your Stomach straight and the rest follows. And 
all that’s French for a liver pill. I’ll take sole 
*• medical charge of you from this hour! for you’re 
too interesting a phenomenon to be passed over.” 

By this time we were deep in the shadow of the 
Blessington lower road and the ’rickshaw came 
to a dead stop under a pine-clad, overhanging 
shale cliff. Instinctively I halted too, giving my 
reason. Heatherlegh rapped out an oath. 

“Now, if you think I’m going to spend a cold 
night on the hillside for the sake of a Stomach- 
am-Brain-cwm-Eye illusion. . . . Lord, ha’ 

mercy! What’s that?” 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


27 

There was a muffled report, a blinding smother 
of dust just in front of us, a crack, the noise of 
rent boughs, and about ten yards of the cliff-side 
— pines, undergrowth, and all — slid down into 
the road below, completely blocking it up. The 
uprooted trees swayed and tottered for a moment 
like drunken giants in the gloom, and then fell 
prone among their fellows with a thunderous 
crash. Our two horses stood motionless and 
sweating with fear. As soon as the rattle of fall- 
ing earth and stone had subsided, my companion 
muttered: — “Man, If we’d gone forward we 
should have been ten feet deep in our graves by 
now. ‘There are more things in heaven and 
earth’ . . . Come home, Pansay, and thank 

God. I want a peg badly.” 

We traced our way over the Church Ridge, 
and I arived at Dr. Heatherlegh’s house shortly 
after midnight. 

His attempts towards my cure commenced al- 
most immediately, and for a week I never left his 
side. Many a time in the course of that week 
did I bless the good fortune which had thrown 
me in contact with Simla’s best and kindest doc- 
tor. Day by day my spirits grew lighter and 
more equable. Day by day, too, I became more 
and more inclined to fall in with Heatherlegh’s 
“spectral illusion” theory, implicating eyes, brain, 
and stomach. I wrote to Kitty, telling her that 
a slight sprain caused by a fall from my horse 
kept me indoors for a few days; and that I should 


28 


PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


be recovered before she had time to regret my 
absence. 

Heatherlegh’s treatment was simple to a de- 
gree. It consisted of liver pills, cold-water baths, 
and strong exercise, taken in the dusk or at early 
dawn — for, as he sagely observed: — “A man 
with a sprained ankle doesn’t walk a dozen miles 
a day, and your young woman might be wonder- 
ing if she saw you.” 

At the end of the week, after much examina- 
tion of pupil and pulse, and strict injunctions as 
to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherlegh dismissed 
me as brusquely as he had taken charge of me. 
Here is his parting benediction: — “Man, I certify 
to your mental cure, and that’s as much as to say 
I’ve cured most of your bodily ailments. Now, 
get your traps out of this as soon as you can; and 
be off to make love to Miss Kitty.” 

I was endeavoring to express my thanks for 
his kindness. He cut me short. 

“Don’t think I did this because I like you. I 
gather that you’ve behaved like a blackguard all 
through. But, all the same, you’re a phenome- 
non, and as queer a phenomenon as you are a 
blackguard. No!” — checking me a second time 
— “not a rupee, please. Go out and see if you 
can find the eyes-brain-and-stomach business 
again. I’ll give you a lakh for each time you see 
it.” 

Half an hour later I was in the Mannerings’ 
drawingroom with Kitty — drunk with the in- 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


29 


knowledge that I should never more be troubled 
with Its hideous presence. Strong in the sense 
of my new-found security, I proposed a ride at 
once; and, by preference, a canter round Jakko. 

Never had I felt so well, so overladen with 
vitality and mere animal spirits, as I did on the 
afternoon of the 30th of April. Kitty was de- 
lighted at the change in my appearance, and 
complimented me on it in her delightfully frank 
and outspoken manner. We left the Manner- 
ings’ house together, laughing and talking, and 
cantered along the Chota Simla road as of old. 

I was in haste to reach the Sanjowlie Reser- 
voir and there make my assurance doubly sure. 
The horses did their best, but seemed all too slow 
to my impatient mind. Kitty was astonished at 
my boisterousness. “Why, Jack!” she cried at 
last, “you are behaving like a child. What are 
you doing?” 

We were just below the Convent, and from 
sheer wantonness I was making my Waler 
plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it 
with the loop of my riding-whip. 

“Doing?” I answered; “nothing, dear. That’s 
just it. If you’d been doing nothing for a week 
except lie up, you’d be as riotous as I. 

“ ‘Singing and murmuring in your feastful mirth. 
Joying to feel yourself alive; 

Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible Earth, 

Lord of the senses five.’ ” 


30 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


My quotation was hardly out of my lips before 
we had rounded the corner above the Convent; 
and a few yards further on could see across to 
Sanjowlie. In the centre of the levei-road stood 
the black and white liveries, the yellow-panelled 
’rickshaw, and Mrs. Keith-Wessington. I pulled 
up, looked, rubbed my eyes, and, I believe must 
have said something. The next thing I knew 
was that I was lying face downward on the 
road, with Kitty kneeling above me in tears. 

“Has It gone, child?” I gasped. Kitty only 
wept more bitterly. 

“Has what gone, Jack dear? what does it all 
mean? There must be a mistake somewhere, 
Jack. A hideous mistake.” Her last words 
brought me to my feet — mad — raving for the 
time being. 

“Yes, there is a mistake somewhere,” I re- 
peated, “a hideous mistake. Come and look at 
It.” 

I have an indistinct idea that I dragged Kitty 
by the wrist along the road up to where It stood, 
and implored her for pity’s sake to speak to It; 
to tell It that we were betrothed; that neither 
Death nor Hell could break the tie between us: 
and Kitty only knows how much more to the 
same effect. Now and again I appealed passion- 
ately to the Terror in the ’rickshaw to bear wit- 
ness to all I had said, and to release me from a 
torture that was killing me. As I talked I sup- 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


31 


pose I must have told Kitty of my old relations 
with Mrs. Wessington, for I saw her listen in- 
tently with white face and blazing eyes. 

“Thank you, Mr. Pansay,” she said, “that’s 
quite enough. Syce ghora lao .” 

The syces, impassive as Orientals always are, 
had come up with the recaptured horses; and as 
Kitty sprang into her saddle I caught hc*ld of the 
bridle, entreating her to hear me out and forgive. 
My answer was the cut of her riding-whip across 
my face from mouth to eye, and a word or two of 
farewell that even now I cannot write down. So 
I judged, and judged rightly, that Kitty knew all; 
and I staggered back to the side of the ’rickshaw. 
My face was cut and bleeding, and the blow of 
the riding-whip had raised a livid blue wheal on 
it. I had no self-respect. Just then, Hetherlegh, 
who must have been following Kitty and me at a 
distance, cantered up. 

“Doctor,” I said, pointing to my face, “here’s 
Miss Mannering’s signature to my order of dis- 
missal and . . . I’ll thank you for that lakh 

as soon as convenient.” 

Heatherlegh’s face, even in my abject misery, 
moved me to laughter. 

“I’ll stake my professional reputation” — he 
began. “Don’t be a fool,” I whispered. “I’ve 
lost my life’s happiness and you’d better take me 
home.” 

As I spoke the ’rickshaw was gone. Then I 


32 


THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW. 


lost all knowledge of what was passing. The 
crest of Jakko seemed to heave and roll like the 
crest of a cloud and fall in upon me 

Seven days later (on the 7th of May, that is to 
say) I was aware that I was lying in Heather- 
legh’s room as weak as a little child. Heather- 
legh was watching me intently from behind the 
papers on his writing-table. His first words were 
not encouraging; but I was too far spent to be 
much moved by them. 

“Here’s Miss Kitty has sent back your letters. 
You corresponded a good deal, you young 
people. Here’s a packet that looks like a ring, 
and a cheerful sort of a note from Mannering 
Papa, which I’ve taken the liberty of reading and 
burning. The old gentleman’s not pleased with 
you.” 

And Kitty?” I asked dully. 

“Rather more drawn than her father, from 
what she says. By the same token you must 
have been letting out any number of queer remin- 
iscences just before I met you. ’Says that a man 
who would have behaved to a woman as you did 
to Mrs. Wessington ought to kill himself out of 
sheer pity for his kind. She’s a hot-headed little 
virago, your mash. ’Will have it too that you 
were Suffering from D. T. when that row on the 
Jakko road turned up. ’Says she’ll die before she 
ever speaks to you again. 

I groaned and turned over on the other side. 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


33 

“Now you’ve got your choice, my friend. This 
engagement has to be broken off; and the Man- 
nerings don’t want to be too hard on you. Was 
it broken through D. T. or epileptic fits? Sorry 
I can’t offer you a better exchange unless you’d 
tell ’em it’s fits. All Simla knows about that 
scene on the Ladies’ Mile. Come! I’ll give you 
five minutes to think over it.” 

During those five minutes I believe that I ex- 
plored thoroughly the lowest circles of the In- 
ferno which it is permitted man to tread on earth. 
And at the same time I myself was watching my- 
self faltering through the dark labyrinths of 
doubt, misery, and utter despair. I wondered, 
which dreadful alternative I should adopt. Pres- 
ently I heard myself answering, in a voice that I 
hardly recognized, — • 

“They’re confoundedly particular about moral- 
ity in these parts. Give ’em fits, Heatherlegh, 
and my love. Now let me sleep a bit longer.” 

Then my two selves joined, and it was only I 
(half crazed, devil-driven I) that tossed in my 
bed, tracing step by step the history of the past 
month. 

“But I am in Simla,” I kept repeating to my- 
self. “I, Jack Pansay, am in Simla, and there are 
no ghosts here. It’s unreasonable of that woman 
to pretend there are. Why couldn’t Agnes have 
left me alone? I never did her any harm. Only 
I’d never have come back on purpose to kill her . 


34 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


Why can’t I be left alone — left alone, and 
happy?” 

It was high noon when I first awoke; and the 
sun was low in the sky before I slept — slept as 
the tortured criminal sleeps on his rack, too worn 
to feel further pain. 

Next day I could not leave my bed. Heather- 
legh told me in the morning that he had received 
an answer from Mr. Mannering, and that, thanks 
to his (Heatherlegh’s) friendly offices, the story 
of my affliction had travelled through the length 
and breadth of Simla, where I was on all sides 
much pitied. 

“And that’s rather more than you deserve,” 
he concluded pleasantly, “though the Lord 
knows you’ve been going through a pretty severe 
mill. Never mind; we’ll cure you yet, you per- 
verse phenomenon.” 

I declined firmly to be cured. “You’ve been 
much too good to me already, old man,” said I; 
“but I don’t think I need trouble you further.” 

In my heart I knew that nothing Heatherlegh 
could do would lighten the burden that had been 
laid upon me. 

With that knowledge came also a sense of 
hopeless, impotent rebellion against the unrea- 
sonableness of it all. There were scores of men 
no better than I whose punishments had at least 
been reserved for another world; and I felt that 
it was bitterly, cruelly unfair that I alone should 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


35 

have been singled out for so hideous a fate. 
This mood would in time give place to another 
where it seemed that the ’rickshaw and I were 
the only realities in a world of shadows; that 
Kitty was a ghost; that Mannering, Heatherlegh. 
and all the other men and women I knew were all 
ghosts; and the great, gray hills themselves Dut 
vain shadows devised to torture me. From mood 
to mood I tossed backwards and forwards for 
seven weary days; my body growing stronger 
and stronger, until the bedroom looking-glass 
told me that I had returned to every-day life, and 
was as other men once more. Curiously enough 
my face showed no signs of the struggle I had 
gone through. It was pale indeed, but as ex- 
pressionless and commonplace as ever. I had 
expected some permanent alteration — visible evi- 
dence of the disease that was eating me away. I 
found nothing. 

On th 15th of May I left Heatherlegh’s house 
at eleven o’clock in the morning; and the instinct 
of the bachelor drove me to the Club. There I 
found that every man knew my story as told by 
Heatherlegh, and was, in clumsy fashion, ab- 
normally kind and attentive. Nevertheless I re- 
cognized that for the rest of my natural life I 
should be among but not of my fellows; and I en- 
vied very bitterly indeed the laughing coolies on 
the Mall below. I lunched at the Club, and at 
four o’clock wandered aimlessly down the Mall 


THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW. 


36 

in the vague hope of meeting Kitty. Close to 
the Band-stand the black and white liveries 
joined me; and I heard Mrs. Wessington’s old 
appeal at my side. I had been expecting this 
•ever since I came out; and was only surprised at 
her delay. The phantom ’rickshaw and I went 
side by side along the Chota Simla road in 
silence. Close to the bazar, Kitty and a man on 
horseback overtook and passed us. For any sign 
she gave I might have been a dog in the road. 
She did not even pay me the compliment of 
quickening her pace; though the rainy afternoon 
had served for an excuse . 

So Kitty and her companion, and I and my 
ghostly Light-o’-Love, crept round Jakko in 
couples. The road was streaming with water; the 
pines dripped like roof-pipes on the rocks below, 
and the air was full of fine, driving rain. Two 
or three times I found myself saying to myself 
almost aloud: — “I’m Jack Pansay on leave at 
Simla — at Simla \ Every-day, ordinary Simla. 
I mustn’t forget that — I mustn’t forget that.” 
Then I would try to recollect some of the gossip 
1 had heard at the Club : the prices of So-and-So’s 
horses — anything, in fact, that related to the 
work-a-day Anglo-Indian world I knew so well. 
I even repeated the multiplication-table rapidly 
to myself, to make quite sure that I was not ta- 
king leave of my senses. It gave me much com- 
fort; and must have prevented my hearing Mrs. 
Wessington for a time. 


THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. 


37 

Once more I wearily climbed the Convent 
slope and entered the level road. Here Kitty and 
the man started off at a canter, and I was left 
alone with Mrs. Wessington. “Agnes,” said l, 
“will you put back your hood and tell me what it 
all means?” The hood dropped noiselessly, and 
I was face to face with my dead and buried mis- 
tress. She was wearing the dress in which I had 
last seen her alive; carried the same tiny hand- 
kerchief in her right hand; and the same card- 
case in her left. (A woman eight months dead 
with a card-case!) I had to pin myself down to- 
the multiplication-table, and to set both hands on 
the stone parapet of the road, to assure myself 
that that at least was real. 

“Agnes,” I repeated, “for pity’s sake tell me 
what it all means.” Mrs. Wessington leaned for- 
ward, with that odd, quick turn of the head I 
used to know so well, and spoke. 

If my story had not already so madly over- 
leaped the bounds of all human belief I should 
apologize to you now. As I know that no one — 
no, not even Kitty, for whom it is written as some 
sort of justification on my conduct — will believe 
me, I will go on. Mrs. Wessington spoke and I 
walked with her from the Sanjowlie road to the 
turning below the Commander-in-Chief’s house 
as I might walk by the side of any living woman’s 
’rickshaw, deep in conversation. The second and 
most tormenting of my moods of sickness had 


38 


THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW 


suddenly laid upon me, and like the Prince in 
Tennyson’s poem, “I seemed to move amid a 
world of ghosts.” There had been a garden- 
party at the Commander-inChiefs, and we two 
joined the crowd of homeward-bound folk. As I 
saw them then it seemed that they were the 
shadows — impalpable fantastic shadows — that di- 
vided for Mrs. Wessington’s ’rickshaw to pass 
through. What we said during the course of that 
weird interview I cannot — indeed, I dare not — 
tell. Heatherlegh’s comment would have been a 
short laugh and a remark that I had been “mash- 
ing a brain-eye-and-stomach chimera.” It was a 
ghastly and yet in some indefinable way a mar- 
vellously dear experience. Could it be possible, 
I wondered, that I was in this life to woo a 
second time the woman I had killed by my own 
neglect and cruelty? 

I met Kitty on the homeward road — a shadow 
among shadows. 

If I were to describe all the incidents of the 
next fortnight in their order, my story would 
never come to an end; and your patience would 
be exhausted. Morning after morning and even- 
ing after evening the ghostly ’rickshaw and I 
used to wander through Simla together. Where- 
ever I went there the four black and white liv- 
eries followed me and bore me company to and 
from my hotel. At the Theatre I found them 
amid the crowd of yelling jhampanies ; outside 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


39 


the Club veranda, after a long evening of whist; 
at the Birthday Ball, waiting patiently for my re- 
appearance; and in broad daylight when I went 
calling. Save that it cast no shadow, the ’rick- 
shaw was in every respect as real to look upon 
as one of wood and iron. More than once, in- 
deed, I have had to check myself from warning 
some hard-riding friend against cantering over it. 
More than once I have walked down the Mall 
deep in conversation with Mrs. Wessington to 
the unspeakable amazement of the passers-by. 

Before I had been out and about a week I 
learned that the “fit” theory had been discarded 
in favor of insanity. However, I made no 
change in my mode of life. I called, rode, and 
dined out as freely as ever. I had a passion for 
the society of my kind which I had never felt be- 
fore; I hungered to be among the realities of life; 
and at the same time I felt vaguely unhappy 
when I had been separated too long from my 
ghostly companion. It would be almost impos- 
sible to describe my varying moods from the 15th 
of May up to to-day. 

The presence of the ’rickshaw filled me by 
turns with horror, blind fear, a dim sort of pleas- 
ure, and utter despair. I dared not leave Simla; 
and I knew that my stay there was killing me. 

I knew, moreover, that it was my destifiy to die 
slowly and a little every day. My only anxiety 
was to get the penance over as quietly as might 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


40 

be. Alternately I hungered for a sight of Kitty 
and watched her outrageous flirtations with my 
successor — to speak more accurately, my suc- 
cessors — with amused interest. She was as much 
out of my life as I was out of hers. By day I 
wandered with Mrs. Wessington almost content. 
By night I implored Heaven to let me return to 
the world as I used to know it. Above all these 
varying moods lay the sensation of dull numbing 
wonder that the Seen and Unseen should mingle 
so strangely on this earth to hound one poor soul 
to its grave. 

August 27 . — Heatherlegh has been indefatiga- 
ble in his attendance on me; and only yesterday 
told.me that I ought to send in an application for 
sick leave. An application to escape the company 
of a phantom! A request that the Government 
would graciously permit me to get rid of five 
ghosts and an airy ’rickshaw by going to Eng- 
land! Heatherlegh’s proposition moved me al- 
most to hysterical laughter. I told him that I 
should await the end quietly at Simla; and I am 
sure that the end is not far off. Believe me that 
I dread its advent* more than any word can say ; 
and I torture myself* nightly with a thousand 
speculations as to the manner of my death. 

Shall I die in my bed decently and as an Eng- 
lish gentleman should die; or, in one last walk on 
the Mall, will my soul be wrenched from me to 


THE PHANTOM ’ RICKSHAW . 


41 


take its place for ever and ever by the side of that 
ghastly phantasm? Shall I return to my old lost 
allegiance in the next world, or shall I meet 
Agnes, loathing her and bound to her side 
through all eternity? Shall we two hover over 
the scene of our lives till the end of Time? As 
the day of my death draws nearer, the intense 
horror that all living flesh feels towards escaped 
spirits from beyond the grave grows more and 
more powerful. It is an awful thing to go down 
quick among the dead with scarcely one-half of 
your life completed. It is a thousand times more 
awful to wait as I do in your midst, for I know 
not what unimaginable terror/’ Pity me, at least 
on the score of my “delusion,” for I know you 
will never believe what I have written here. Yet 
as surely as ever a man was done to death by the 
Powers of Darkness I am that man. 

In justice, too, pity her. For as surely as ever 
woman was killed by man, I killed Mrs. Wes- 
sington. And the last portion of my punishment 
is even now upon me. 

























































I 


















THE STRANGE RIDE 
OF 

MORROWBIE JUKES. 



' 


























- 




























































































































THE STRANGE RIDE OF MORROWBIE 
JUKES. 

Alive or dead — there is no other way . — Native Proverb. 

There is, as the conjurers say, no deception 
about this tale. Jukes by accident stumbled upon 
a village that is well known to exist, though he is 
the only Englishman who has been there. A 
somewhat similar institution used to flourish on 
the outskirts of Calcutta, and there is a story that 
if you go into the heart of Bikanir, which is in the 
heart of the Great Indian Desert, you shall come 
across not a village but a town where the Dead 
who did not die but may not live have established 
their headquarters. And, since it is perfectly true 
that in the same Desert is a wonderful city where 
all the rich money-lenders retreat after they have 
made their fortunes (fortunes so vast that the 
owners cannot trust even the strong hand of the 
Government to protect them, but take refuge in 
the waterless sands), and drive sumptuous 
C-spring barouches, and buy beautiful girls and 
decorate their palaces with gold and ivory and 
Minton tiles and mother-o’-pearl, I do not see 


46 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


why Jukes’s tale should not be true. He is a 
Civil Engineer, with a head for plans and dis- 
tances and things of that kind, and he certainly 
would not take the trouble to invent imaginary 
traps. He could earn more by doing his legiti- 
mate work. He never varies the tale in the tell- 
ing, and grows very hot and indignant when he 
thinks of the disrespectful treatment he received. 
He wrote this quite straight-forwardly at first, but 
he has since touched it up in places and intro- 
duced Moral Reflections, thus: 

In the beginning it all arose from a slight at- 
tack of fever. My work necessitated my being in 
camp for some months between Pakpattan and 
Mubarakpur — a desolate sandy stretch of coun- 
try as every one who has had the misfortune xo 
go there may know. My coolies were neither 
more nor less exasperating than other gangs, 
and my work demanded sufficient attention to 
keep me from moping, had I been inclined to so 
unmanly a weakness. 

On the 23d December, 1884, I felt a little 
feverish. There was a full moon at the time, and, 
in consequence, every dog near my tent was bay- 
ing it. The brutes asembled in twos and threes 
and drove me frantic. A few days previously I 
had shot one loud-mouthed singer and suspended 
his carcass in terrorem about fifty yards from my 
tent-door. But his friends fell upon, fought for, 
and ultimately devoured the body: and, as it 


MORROIVBIE JUKES . 


47 


seemed to me, sang their hymns of thanksgiving 
afterwards with renewed energy. 

The light-headedness which accompanies fever 
acts differently on different men. My irritation 
gave way, after a short time, to a fixed determina- 
tion to slaughter one huge black and white beast 
who had been foremost in song and first in flight 
throughout the evening. Thanks to a shaking 
hand and a giddy head I had already missed him 
twice with both barrels of my shot-gun, when it 
struck me that my best plan would be to ride him 
down in the open and finish him off with a hog- 
spear. This, of course, was merely the semi- 
delirious notion of a fever patient; but I remem- 
ber that it struck me at the time as being emi- 
nently practical and feasible. 

I therefore ordered my groom to saddle Pornic 
and bring him round quietly to the rear of my 
tent. When the pony was ready, I stood at his 
head prepared to mount and dash out as soon as 
the dog should again lift up his voice. Pornic, 
by the way, had not been out of his pickets for a 
couple of days; the night air was crisp and chilly; 
and I was armed with a specially long and sharp 
pair of persuaders with which I had been rousing 
a sluggish cob that afternoon. You will easily 
believe, then, that when he was let go he went 
straight as a die, the tent was left far behind, and 
we were flying over the smooth sandy soil at 
racing speed. In a minute we had passed the 


48 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


wretched dog, and I had almost forgotten why it 
was that I had taken horse and hog-spear. 

The delirium of fever and the excitement of 
rapid motion through the air must have taken 
away the remnant of my senses. I have a faint 
recollection of standing upright in my stirrups, 
and of brandishing my hog-spear at the great 
white Moon that looked down so calmly on my 
mad gallop; and of shouting challenges to the 
camel-thorn bushes as they whizzed past. Once 
or twice, I believe, I swayed forward on Pornic’s 
neck, and literally hung on by my spurs — as the 
marks next morning showed. > 

The wretched beast went forward like a thing 
possessed, over what seemed to be a limitless ex- 
panse of moonlit sand. Next, I remember, the 
ground rose suddenly in front of us, and as we 
topped the ascent I saw the waters of the Sutlej 
shining like a silver bar below. Then Pornic 
blundered heavily on his nose, and we rolled to- 
gether down some unseen -slope. 

I must have lost consciousness, for when I re- 
covered I was lying on my stomach in a heap of 
soft white sand, and the dawn was beginning to 
break dimly over the edge of the slope down 
which I had fallen. As the light grew stronger 
I saw that I was at the bottom of a horseshoe- 
shaped crater of sand, opening on one side di- 
rectly o» to the shoals of the Sutlej. My fever 
had altogether left me, and, with the exception of 


MORROW BIE JUKES. 


49 

a slight dizziness in the head, I felt no bad effects 
from the fall over night. 

Pornic, who was standing a few yards awav, 
was naturally a good deal exhausted, but had not 
hurt himself in the least. His saddle, a polo one, 
was much knocked about, and had been twisted 
under his belly. It took me some time to put him 
to rights, and in the mean time I had ample op- 
portunities of observing the spot into which I had 
so foolishly dropped. 

At the risk of being considered tedious, I must 
describe it at length; inasmuch as an accurate 
mental picture of its peculiarities will be of mate- 
rial assistance in enabling the reader to under- 
stand what follows. 

Imagine then, as I have said before, a horse- 
shoe-shaped crater of sand with steeply graded 
sand walls about thirty-five feet high. (The slope, 
I fancy, must have been about 65°). This crater 
enclosed a level piece of ground about fifty yards 
long by thirty at its broadest part, with a rude 
well in the centre. Round the bottom of the 
crater, about three feet from the level of the 
ground proper, ran a series of eighty-three semi- 
circular, ovoid, square, and multilateral holes, all 
about three feet at the mouth. Each hole on in- 
spection showed that it was carefully shored in- 
ternally with drift-wood and bamboos, and over 
the mouth a wooden drip-board projected, like 
the peak of a jockey’s cap, for two feet. No sign 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


SO 

of life was visible in these tunnels, but a most 
sickening stench pervaded the entire amphithea- 
tre — a stench fouler than any which my wander- 
ings in Indian villages have introduced me to. 

Having remounted Pornic, who was as anx- 
ious as I to get back to camp, I rode round the 
base of the horseshoe to find some place whence 
an exit would be practicable. The inhabitants, 
whoever they might be, had not thought fit to 
put in an appearance, so I was left to my own 
devices. My first attempt to “rush” Pornic up 
the steep sand-banks showed me that I had fallen 
into a trap exactly on the same model as that 
which the ant-lion sets for its prey. At each step 
the shifting sand poured down from above in 
tons, and rattled on the drip-boards of the holes 
like small shot. A couple of ineffectual charges 
sent us both rolling down to the bottom, half 
choked with the torrents of sand; and I was con- 
strained to turn my attention to the river-bank. 

Here everything seemed easy enough. The 
sand hills ran down to the river edge, it is true, 
but there were plenty of shoals and shallows 
across which I could gallop Pornic, and find my 
way back to terra Erma by turning sharply to the 
right or the left. As I led Pornic over the sands 
I was startled by the faint pop of a rifle across the 
river; and at the same moment a bullet dropped 
with a shorp “whit” close to Pornic’s head. 

There was no mistaking the nature of the 


MORROWBIE JUKES. 


5r 


missile — a regulation Martini-Henry “picket.” 
About five hundred yards away a country-boat 
was anchored in midstream; and a jet of smoke 
drifting away from its bows in the still morning 
air showed me whence the delicate attention had 
come. Was ever a respectable gentleman in 
such an impasse ? The treacherous sand slope 
allowed no escape from a spot which I had visited 
most involuntarily, and a promenade on the river 
frontage was the signal for a bombardment from 
some insane native in a boat. I’m afraid that I 
lost my temper very much indeed. 

Another bullet reminded me that I had better 
save my breath to cool my porridge; and I re- 
treated hastily up the sands and back to the 
horseshoe, where I saw that the noise of the rifle 
had drawn sixty-five human beings from the bad- 
ger-holes which I had up till that point supposed 
to be untenanted. I found myself in the midst 
of a crowd of spectators — about forty men, 
twenty women, and one child who could not have- 
been more than five years old. They were all 
scantily clothed in that salmon-colored cloth 
which one associates with Hindu mendicants, 
and, at first sight, gave me the impression of a 
band of loathsome fakirs. The filth and repul- 
siveness of the assembly were beyond all descrip- 
tion, and I shuddered to think what their life in 
the badger-holes must be. 

Even in these days, when local self-govern- 


52 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


-ment has destroyed the greater part of a native’s 
respect for a Sahib, I have been accustomed to a 
certain amount of civility from my inferiors, and 
on approaching the crowd naturally expected 
that there would be some recognition of my pres- 
ence. As a matter of fact there was; but it was 
by no means what I had looked for. 

The ragged crew actually laughed at me — such 
laughter I hope I may never hear again. They 
cackled, yelled, whistled, and howled as I walked 
into their midst; some of them literally throwing 
themselves down on the ground in convulsions of 
unholy mirth. In a moment I had left go Por- 
nic’s head, and, irritated beyond expression at the 
morning’s adventure, commenced cuffing those 
nearest to me with all the force I could. The 
wretches dropped under my blows like nine-pins, 
and the laughter gave place to wails for mercy; 
while those yet untouched clasped me round the 
knees, imploring me in all sorts of uncouth 
tongues to spare them. 

In the tumult, and just when I was feeling very 
much ashamed ot myself for having thus easily 
given way to my temper, a thin, high voice mur- 
mured in English from behind my shoulder: — 
“Sahib! Sahib! Do you not know me? Sahib, it 
is Gunga Dass, the telegraph-master.” 

I spun round quickly and faced the speaker. 

Gunga Dass (I have, of course, no hesitation in 
mentioning the man’s real name) I had known 


M0RR0WB1E JUKES. 


S3 


four years before as a Deccanee Brahmin lent by 
the Punjab Government to one of the Khalsia 
States. He was in charge of a branch telegraph- 
office there, and when I had last met him was a 
jovial, full-stomached, portly Government ser- 
vant with a marvellous capacity for making bad 
puns in English — a peculiarity which made me 
remember him long after I had forgotten his ser- 
vices to me in his official capacity. It is seldom 
that a Hindu makes English puns. 

Now, however, the man was changed beyond 
all recognition. Caste-mark, stomach, slate- 
colored continuations, and unctuous speech were 
all gone. I looked at a withered skeleton, tur- 
banless and almost naked, with long matted hair 
and deep-set codfish-eyes. But for a crescent- 
shaped scar on the left cheek — the result of an 
accident for which I was responsible — I should 
never have known him. But it was indubitably 
Gunga Dass, and — for this I was thankful — an 
English-speaking native who might at % least tell 
me the meaning of all that I had gone through 
that day. 

The crowd retreated to some distance as I 
turned towards the miserable figure, and ordered 
him to show me some method of escaping from 
the crater. He held a freshly plucked crow in his 
hand, and in reply to my question climbed slowly 
on a platform of sand which ran in front of the 
holes, and commenced lighting a fire there in 


54 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


silence. Dried bents, sand-poppies, and drift- 
wood burn quickly; and I derived much consola- 
tion from the fact that he lit them with an ordi- 
nary sulphur-match. When they were in a bright 
glow, and the crow was neatly spitted in front 
thereof, Gunga Dass began without a word of 
preamble: — 

“There were only two kinds of men, Sair. The 
alive and the dead. When you are dead you are 
dead, but when you are alive you live.” (Here 
the crow demanded his attention for an instant as 
it twirled before the fire in danger of being burnt 
to a cinder.) “If you die at home and do not die 
when you come to the ghat to be burnt you come 
here.” 

The nature of the reeking village was made 
plain now, and all that I had known or read of 
the grotesque and the horrible paled before the 
fact just communicated by the ex-Brahmin. Six- 
teen years ago, when I first landed in Bombay, I 
had been, told by a wandering Armenian of the 
existence, somewhere in India, of a place to 
which such Hindus as had the misfortune to re- 
cover from trance or catalepsy were conveyed 
and kept, and I recollect laughing heartily at 
what I was then pleased to consider a traveller’s 
tale. Sitting at the bottom of the sand-trap, the 
memory of Watson’s Hotel, with its swinging 
punkahs, white-robed attendants, and the sallow- 
faced Armenian, rose up in my mind as vividly 


MORROW B IE JUKES. 


55 

as a photograph, and I burst into a loud fit of 
laughter. The contrast was too absurd! 

Gunga Dass, as he bent over the unclean bird, 
watched me curiously. Hindus seldom laugh, 
and his surroundings were not such as to move 
Gunga Dass to any undue excess of hilarity. He 
removed the crow solemnly from the wooden spr 
and as solemnly devoured it. Then he continued 
his story, which I give in his own words : — 

“In epidemics of the cholera you are carried to 
be burnt almost before you are dead. When you 
come to the riverside the cold air, perhaps, makes 
you alive, and then, if you are only a little alive, 
mud is put on your nose and mouth and you die 
conclusively. If you are rather more alive, more 
mud is put; but if you are too lively they let you 
go and take you away. I was too lively, and 
made protestation with anger against the indig- 
nities that they endeavored to press upon me. In 
those days I was Brahmin and proud man. Now 
I am dead man and eat” — here he eyed* the well- 
gnawed breast bone with the first sign of emotion 
that I had seen in him since we met — “crows, and 
other things. They took me from my sheets 
when they saw that I was too lively and gave me 
medicines for one week, and I survived success- 
fully. Then they sent me by rail from my place 
to Okara Station, with a man to take care of me; f 
and at Okara Station we met two other men, and 
they conducted we three on camels, in the night, 


56 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


from Okara Station to this place, and they pro- 
pelled me from the top to the bottom, and the 
other two succeeded, and I have been here ever 
since two and a half years. Once I was Brahmin 
and proud man, and now I eat crows.” 

“There is no way of getting out?” 

“None of what kind at all. When I first came 
I made experiments frequently and all the others 
also, but we have always succumbed to the sand 
which is percipitated upon our heads.” 

“But surely,” I broke in at this point, “the 
river-front is open, and it is worth while dodging 
the bullets; while at night” — 

I had already matured a rough plan of escape 
which a natural instinct of selfishness forbade me 
sharing with Gunga Dass. He, however, divined 
my unspoken thought almost as soon as it was 
formed; and, to my intense astonishment, gave 
vent to a long low chuckle of derision — the 
laughter, be it understood, of a superior or at 
least of an equal. 

“You will not,” — he had dropped the Sir com- 
pletely after his opening sentence — “make any 
escape that way. But you can try. I have tried. 
Once only.” 

The sensation of nameless terror and abject 
fear which I had in vain attempted to strive 
against overmastered me completely. My long 
fast — it was now close upon ten o’clock, and I 
had eaten nothing since tiffin on the previous day 


M0RR0WB1E JUKES. 


57 


— combined with the violent and unnatural agita- 
tion of the ride, had exhausted me, and I verily 
believe that, for a few minutes, I acted as one 
mad. I hurled myself against the pitiless sand- 
slope. I ran round the base of the crater, blas- 
pheming and praying by turns. I crawled out 
among the sedges of the river-front, only to be 
driven back each time in an agony of nervous 
dread by the rifle-bullets which cut up the sand 
round me — for I dared not face the death of a 
mad dog among that hideous crowd — and finally 
fell, spent and raving, at the curb of the well. No 
one had taken the slightest notice of an exhibi- 
tion which makes me blush hotly even when I 
think of it now. 

Two or three men trod on my panting body as 
they drew water, but they were evidently used to 
this sort of thing, and had no time to waste upon 
me. The situation was humiliating. Gunga Dass, 
indeed, when he had banked the embers of his 
fire with sand, was at some pains to throw half a 
cupful of fetid water over my head, an attention 
for which I could have fallen on my knees and 
thanked him, but he was laughing all the while in 
the same mirthless, wheezy key that greeted me 
on my first attempt to force the shoals. And so, 
in a semi-comatose condition, I lay till noon. 
Then, being only a man after all, I felt hungry, 
and intimated as much to Gunga Dass, whom I 
had begun to regard as my natural protector. 


58 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


Following the impulse of the outer world when 
dealing with natives, I put my hand into my 
pocket and drew out four annas. The absurdity 
of the gift struck me at once, and I was about to 
replace the money. 

Gunga Dass, however, was of a different 
opinion. “Give me the money,” said he; “all you 
have, or I will get help, and we will kill you!” 
All this as if it were the most natural thing in the 
world! 

A Briton’s first impulse, I believe, is to guard 
the contents of his pockets; but a moment’s re- 
flection convinced me of the futility of differing 
with the one man who had it in his power to 
make me comfortable; and with whose help it 
was possible that I might eventually escape from 
the crater. I gave him all the money in my pos- 
session, Rs. 9-8-5 — nine rupees eight annas and 
five pie — for I always keep small change as 
bakshish when I am in camp. Gunga Dass 
clutched the coins, and hid them at once in his 
ragged loin-cloth, his expression changing to 
something diabolical as he looked round to 
assure himself that no one had observed us. 

“Now I will give you something to eat,” said 
he. 

What pleasure the possession of my money 
could have afforded him I am unable to say; but 
inasmuch as it did give him evident delight I was 
not sorry that I had parted with it so readily, for 


M0RR0WB1E JUKES. 


59 


I had no doubt that he would have had me killed 
if I had refused. One does not protest against the 
vagaries of a den of wild beasts; and my com- 
panions were lower than any beasts. While I de- 
voured what Gung Dass had provided, a coarse 
chapatti and a cupful of the foul well-water, ,the 
people showed not the faintest sign of curiosity — 
that curiosity which is so rampant, as a rule in an 
Indian village. 

I could even fancy that they despised me. At 
all events they treated me with the most chilling 
indifference, and Gunga Dass was nearly as bad. 
I plied him with questions about the terrible vil- 
lage, and received extremely unsatisfactory an- 
swers. So far as I could gather, it had been in 
existence from time immemorial — whence I con- 
cluded that it was at least a century old — and 
during that time no one had ever been known to 
escape from it. (I had to control myself here 
with both hands, lest the blind terror should lay 
hold of me a second time and drive me raving 
round the crater.) Gunga Dass took a malicious 
pleasure in emphasizing this point and in watch- 
ing me wince. Nothing that I could do would 
induce him to tell me who the mysterious “They” 
were. 

“It is so ordered,” he would reply, “and I do 
not yet know any one who has disobeyed the 
orders.” 

“Only wait till my servants find that I am 


6o 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


missing,” I retorted, “and I promise you that this 
place shall be cleared off the face of the earth, 
and I’ll give you a lesson in civility, too, my 
friend.” 

“Your servants would be*torn in pieces before 
they came near this place; and, besides, you are 
dead, my dear friend. It is not your fault, of 
course, but none the less you are dead and 
buried.” 

At irregular intervals supplies of food, I was 
told, were dropped down from the land side into 
the amphitheatre, and the inhabitants fought for 
them like wild beasts. When a man felt his 
death coming on he retreated to his lair and died 
there. The body was sometimes dragged out of 
the hole and thrown on to the sand, or allowed to 
rot where it lay. 

The phrase “thrown on to the sand” caught 
my attention, and I asked Gunga Dass whether 
this sort of thing was not likely to breed a pesti- 
lence. 

“That,” said he, with another of his wheezy 
chuckles, “you may see for yourself subsequently. 
You will have much time to make observations.” 

Whereat, to his great delight, I winced once 
more and hastily continued the conversation: — 
“And how do you live here from day to day? 
What do you do?” The question elicited exactly 
the same answer as before — coupled with the in- 
formation that “this place is like your European 


MORROW BIE JUKES. fa 

heaven; there is neither marrying nor giving in 
marriage.” 

Gunga Dass had been educated at a Mission 
School, and, as he himself admitted, had he only 
changed his religion “like a wise man,” might 
have avoided the living grave which was now his 
portion. But as long as I was with him I fancy 
he was happy. 

Here was a Sahib, a representative of the 
dominant race, helpless as a child and completely 
at the mercy of his native neighbors. In a delib- 
erate lazy way he set himself to torture me as a 
schoolboy would devote a rapturous half-hour to 
watching the agonies of an impaled beetle, or as 
a ferret in a blind burrow might glue himself 
comfortably to the neck of a rabbit. The burden 
of his conversation was that there was no escape 
“of no kind whatever,” and that I should stay 
here till I died and was “thrown on the sand.” If 
it were possible to forejudge the conversation of 
the Damned on the advent of a new soul in their 
abode, I should say that they would speak as 
Gunga Dass did to me throughout that long 
afternoon. I was powerless to protest or answer; 
all my energies being devoted to a struggle 
against the inexplicable terror that threatened to 
overwhelm me again and again. I can compare 
the feeling to nothing except the struggles of a 
man against the overpowering nausea of the 
Channel passage — only my agony was of the 
spirit and infinitely more terrible. 


62 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


As the day wore on, the inhabitants began to 
appear in full strength to catch the rays of the 
afternoon sun, which was now sloping in at the 
mouth of the crater. They assembled in little 
knots, and talked among themselves without 
even throwing a glance in my direction. About 
four o’clock, as far as I could judge, Gunga Dass 
rose and dived into his lair for a moment, emerg- 
ing with a live crow in his hands. The wretched 
bird was in a most draggled and deplorable con- 
dition, but seemed to be in no way afraid of its 
master. Advancing cautiously to the river-front, 
Gunga Dass stepped from tussock to tussock un- 
til he had reached a smooth patch of sand di- 
rectly in the line of the boat’s fire. The occu- 
pants of the boat took no notice. Here he 
stopped, and, with a couple of dexterous turns of 
the wrist, pegged the bird on its back with out- 
stretched wings. As was only natural, the crow 
began to shriek at once and beat the air with its 
claws. In a few seconds the clamor had attracted 
the attention of a bevy of wild crows on a shoal a 
few hundred yards away, where they were dis- 
cussing something that looked like a corpse. 
Half a dozen crows flew over at once to see what 
was going on, and also, as it proved, to attack the 
pinioned bird. Gunga Dass, who had lain down 
on a tussock, motioned to me to be quiet, though 
I fancy this was a needless precaution. In a mo- 
ment, and before I could see how it happened, a 


M0RR0WB1E JUKES. 


63 

wild crow, who had grappled with the shrieking 
and helpless bird, was entangled in the latter’s 
claws, swiftly disengaged by Dunga Dass, and 
pegged down beside its companion in adversity. 
Curiosity, it seemed, overpowered the rest of the 
flock, and almost before Gunga Dass and I had 
time to withdraw to the tussock, two more cap- 
tives were struggling in the upturned claws of the 
decoys. So the chase — if I can give it so digni- 
fied a name — continued until Gunga Dass had 
captured seven crows. Five of them he throttled 
at once, reserving two for further operations an- 
other day. I was a good deal impressed by this, 
to me, novel method of securing food, and com- 
plimented Gunga Dass on his skill. 

“It is nothing to do,” said he. “To-morrow 

you must do it for me. You are stronger than I 

„ ^ >> 
am. 

This calm assumption of superiority unset me 
not a little, and I answered peremptorily: — “In- 
deed, you old ruffian! What do you think I have 
given you money for?” 

“Very well,” was the unmoved reply. “Per- 
haps not to-morrow, nor the day after, nor subse- 
quently; but in the end, and for many years, you 
will catch crows and eat crows, and you will 
thank your European God thatjyou have crows 
to catch and eat.” 

I could have cheerfully strangled him for -this; 
but judged it best ‘under the circumstances to 


6 4 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


smother my resentment. An hour later I was 
eating one of the crows ; and as Gunga Dass had 
said, thanking my God that I had a crow to eat. 
Never as long as I live shall I forget that evening 
meal. The whole .population were squatting on 
the hard sand platform opposite their dens, 
huddled over tiny fires of refuse and dried rushes. 
Death, having once laid his hand upon these men 
and forborne to strike, seemed to stand aloof 
from them now; for most of our company were 
old men, bent and worn and twisted with years, 
and women aged to all appearance as the Fates 
themselves. They sat together in knots and 
talked — God only knows what they found to dis- 
cuss — in low equable tones, curiously in contrast 
to the strident babble with which natives are ac- 
customed to make day hideous. Now and then 
an access of that sudden fury which had pos- 
sessed me in the morning would lay hold on a 
man or woman; and with yells and imprecations 
the sufferer would attack the steep slope until, 
baffled and bleeding, he fell back on the platform 
incapable of moving a limb. The others would 
never even raise their eyes when this happened, 
as men too well aware of the futility of their fel- 
lows’ attempts and wearied with their useless 
repetition. I saw four such outbursts in the 
course of that evening. 

Gunga Dass took an eminently business-like 
view of my situation, and while we were dining — 


MORROW B IE JUKES. 


65 

I can afford to laugh at the recollection now, but 
it was painful enough at the time — propounded 
the terms on which he would consent to “do” for 
me. My nine rupees eight annas, he argued, at 
the rate of three annas a day, would provide me 
with food for fifty-one days, or about seven 
weeks; that is to say, he would be willing to cater 
for me for that length of time. At the end of it 
I was to look after myself. For a further con- 
sideration — videlicet my boots — he would be will- 
ing to allow me to occupy the den next to his 
own, and would supply me with as much dried 
grass for bedding as he could spare. 

“Very well, Gunga Dass,” I replied; “to the 
first terms I cheerfully agree, but, as there is 
nothing on earth to prevent my killing you as 
you sit here and taking everything that you 
have” (I thought of the two invaluable crows at 
the time), “I flatly refuse to give you my boots 
and shall take whichever den I please.” 

The stroke was a bold one, and I was glad 
when I saw that it had succeeded. Gunga Dass 
changed his tone immediately, and disavowed all 
intention of asking for my boots. At the time it 
did not strike me as at all strange that I, a Civil 
Engineer, a man of thirteen years’ standing in 
the Service, and, I trust, an average Englishman, 
should thus calmly threaten murder and violence 
against the man who had, for a consideration it 
is true, taken me under his wing. I had left the 


66 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


world, it seemed, for centuries. I was as certain 
then as I am now of my own existence, that in 
the accursed settlement there was no law save 
that of the strongest; that the living dead men 
had thrown . behind them every canon of the 
world which had cast them out; and that I had 
to depend for my own life on my strength and 
vigilance alone. The crew of the ill-fated Mig- 
nonette are the only men who would understand 
my frame of mind. “At present,” I argued to 
myself, “I am strong and a match for six of these 
wretches. It is imperatively necessary that I 
should, for my own sake, keep both health and 
strength until the hour of my release comes — if it 
ever does.” 

Fortified with these resolutions, I ate and 
drank as much as I could, and made Gunga Dass 
understand that I intended to be his master, and 
that the least sign of insubordination on his part 
would be visited wfith the only punishment I had 
it in my power to inflict — sudden and violent 
death. Shortly after this I went to bed. That 
is to say, Gunga Dass gave me a double armful 
of dried bents which I thrust down the mouth of 
the lair to the right of his, and followed muself, 
feet foremost; the hole running about nine feet 
into the sand with a slight downward inclination, 
and being neatly shored with timbers. From my 
den, which faced the river-front, I was able to 
watch the waters of the Sutle flowing past under 


M0RR0WB1E JUKES. 67 

the light of a young moon and compose myself to 
sleep as best I might. 

The horrors of that night I shall never forget. 
My den was nearly as narrow as a coffin, and the 
sides had been worn smooth and greasy by the 
contact of innumerable naked bodies, added to 
which it smelled abominably. Sleep was alto- 
gether out of question to one in my excited frame 
of mind. As the night wore on, it seemed that 
the entire amphitheatre was filled with legions of 
unclean devils that, trooping up from the shoals 
below, mocked the unfortunates in their lairs. 

Personally I am not of an imaginative temper- 
ament, — very few Engineers are, — but on that 
occasion I was as completely prostrated with 
nervous terror as any woman. After half an 
hour or so, however, I was able once more to 
calmly review my chances of escape. Any exit 
by the steep sand walls was, of course, imprac- 
ticable. I had been thoroughly convinced of this 
some time before. It was possible, just possible, 
that I might, in the uncertain moonlight, safely 
run the gauntlet of the rifle shots. The place was 
so full of terror for me that I was prepared to un- 
dergo any risk in leaving it. Imagine my de- 
light, then, when after creeping stealthily to the 
river-front I found that the infernal boat was not 
there. My freedom lay before me in the next few; 
steps ! 

By walking out to the first shallow pool that 


68 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


lay at the foot of the projecting left horn of the 
horseshoe, I could wade across, turn the flank of 
the crater, and make my way inland. Without 
a moment’s hesitation I marched briskly past the 
tussocks where Gunga Dass had snared the 
crows, and out in the direction of the smooth 
white sand beyond. My first step from the tufts 
of dried grass showed me how utterly futile was 
any hope of escape; for, as I put my foot down, I 
felt an indescribable drawing, sucking motion of 
the sand below. Another moment and my leg 
was swallowed up nearly to the knee. In the 
moonlight the whole surface of the sand seemed 
to be shaken with devilish delight at my disap- 
pointment. I struggled clear, sweating with 
terror and exertion, back to the tussocks behind 
me and fell on my face. 

My only means of escape from the semicircle 
was protected with a quicksand! 

How long I lay I have not the faintest idea; 
but I was roused at last by the malevolent 
chuckle of Gunga Dass at my ear. “I would ad- 
vise you, Protector of the Poor” (the rufflan was 
speaking English) “to return to your house. It 
is unhealthy to lie down here. Moreover, when 
the boat returns, you will most certainly be rifled 
at.” He stood over me in the dim light of the 
dawn, chuckling and laughing to himself. Sup- 
pressing my first impulse to catch the man by th~ 
neck and throw him onto the quicksand, I rose 


MORROWBIE JUKES. ' 69 

sullenly and followed him to the platform below 
the burrows. 

Suddenly, and futilely as I thought while I 
• spoke, I asked: — “Gunga Dass, what is the good 
of the boat if I can’t get out anyhow ?” I recol- 
lect that even in my deepest trouble I had been 
^speculating vaguely on the waste of ammunition 
in guarding an already well protected foreshore. 

Dunga Dass laughed again and made answer: 
— “They have the boat only in daytime. It is 
for the reason that there is a way. I hope we 
shall have the pleasure of your company for 
much longer time. It is a pleasant spot when 
you have been here some years and eaten roast 
crow long enough.” 

I staggered, numbed and helpless, towards the 
fetid burrow allotted to me, and fell asleep. An 
hour or so later I was awakened by a piercing 
scream — the shrill, high-pitched scream of a 
horse in pain. Those who have once heard that 
will never forget the sound. I found some little 
difficulty in scrambling out of the burrow. When 
I was in the open, I saw Pornic, my poor old 
Pornic, lying dead on the sandy soil. How they 
had killed him I cannot guess. Gunga Dass ex- 
plained that horse was better than crow, and 
“greatest good of greatest number is political 
maxim. We are now Republic, Mister Jukes, 
and you are entitled to a fair share of the beast. 
If you like, we will pass a vote of thanks. Shall 
I propose?” 


7o 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


Yes, we were a Republic indeed! A Republic 
of wild beasts penned at the bottom of a pit, to 
eat and fight and sleep till we died. I attempted 
no protest of any kind, but sat down and stared 
at the hideous sight in front of me. In less time 
almost than it takes me to write this, Pornic’s 
body was divided, in some unclean way or other; 
the men and women had dragged the fragments 
on to the platform, and were preparing their 
morning meal. Gunga Dass cooked mine. The 
almost irresistible impulse to fly at the sand walls 
until I was wearied laid hold of me afresh, and I 
had to struggle against it with all my might. 
Gunga Dass was offensively jocular till I told 
him that if he addressed another remark of any 
kind whatever to me I should strangle him where 
he sat. This silenced him till silence became in- 
supportable, and I bade him say something. 

“You will live here till you die like the other 
Feringhi,” he said coolly watching me over the 
fragment of gristle that he was gnawing. 

“What other Sahib, you swine? Speak at once, 
and don’t stop to tell me a lie.” 

“He is over there,” answered Gunga Dass, 
pointing to a burrow-mouth about four doors to 
the left of my own. “You can see for yourself. 
He died in the burrow as you will die, and I will 
die, and as all these men and women and the one 
child will also die.” 

“For pity’s sake tell me all you know about 


MORROW B1E JUKES. 


7 1 

him. Who was he? When did he come, and 
when did he die?” 

This appeal was a weak step on my part. 
Gunga Dass only leered and replied: — “I will not 
— unless you give me something first.” 

Then I recollected where I was, and struck the 
man between the eyes, partially stunning him. 
He stepped down from the platform at once, and, 
cringing and fawning and weeping and attempt- 
ing to embrace my feet, led me round to the bur* 
row which he had indicated. 

‘T know nothing whatever about the gentle- 
man. Your God be my witness that I do not. 
He was as anxious to escape as you were, and he 
was shot from the boat, though we all did all 
things to prevent him from attempting. He was 
shot here.” Gunga Dass laid his hand on his 
lean stomach and bowed to the earth. 

“Well, and what then? Go on!” 

“And then — and then, Your Honor, we car- 
ried him into his house and gave him water, and 
put wet cloths on the wound, and he laid down in 
his house and gave up the ghost.” 

“In how long? In how long?” 

“About half an hour after he received his 
wound. I call Vishn to witness,” yelled the 
wretched man, “that I did everything for him. 
Everything which was possible, that I did!” 

He threw himself down on the ground and 
clasped my ankles. But I had my doubts about 


72 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 




Gunga Dass’s benevolence, and kicked him off 
as he lay protesting. 

“I believe you robbed him of everything he 
had. But I can find out in a minute or two. 
How long was the Sahib here?” 

“Nearly a year and a half. I think he must 
have gone mad. But hear me swear, Protector 
of the Poor! Won’t Your Honor hear me swear 
that I never touched an article that belonged to 
him? What is Your Worship going to do?” 

I had taken Gunga Dass by the waist and had 
hauled him on to the platform opposite the de- 
serted murrow. As I did so I thought of my 
wretched fellow-prisoner’s unspeakable misery 
among all these horrors for eighteen months, 
and the final agony of dying like a rat in a hole, 
with a bullet-wound in the stomach. Gunga 
Dass fancied I was going to kill him and howled 
pitifully. The rest of the population, in the 
plethora that follows a full flesh meal, watched us 
without stirring. 

“Go inside, Gunga Dass,” said I, “and fetch it 
out.” 

I was feeling sick and faint with horror now. 
Gunga Dass nearly rolled off the platform and 
howled aloud. 

“But I am Brahmin, Sahib — a high caste 
Brahmin. By your soul, by your father’s soul, 
do not make me do this thing!” 

“Brahmin or no Brahmin, by my soul and my 


MORROWBIE JUKES. 


7 3 


father’s soul, in you go!” I said, and, seizing him 
by the shoulders, I crammed his head into the 
mouth of the burrow, kicked the rest of him in, 
and, sitting down, covered my face with my 
hands. 

At the end of a few minutes I heard a rustle 
and a creak; then Gunga Dass in a sobbing, 
chocking whisper speaking to himself: then a 
soft thud — and I uncovered my eyes. 

The dry sand had turned the corpse entrusted 
to its keeping into a yellow-brown mummy. I 
told Gunga Dass to stand off while I examined 
it. The body — clad in an olive-green hunting- 
suit much stained and worn, with leather pads on 
the shoulders — was that of a man between thirty 
and forty, above middle height, with light, sandy 
hair, long mustache, and a rough unkempt beard. 
The left canine of the upper jaw was missing, and 
a portion of the lobe of the right ear was gone. 
On the second finger of the left hand was a ring 
— a shield-shaped bloodstone set in gold, with a 
monogram that might have been either “B. K.” 
or “B. L.” On the third finger of the right hand 
was a silver ring in the shape of a coiled cobra, 
much worn and tarnished. Gunga Dass de- 
posited a handful of trifles he had picked out of 
the burrow at my feet, and covering the face of 
the body with my handkerchief, I turned to ex- 
amine these. I give the full list in the hope that 
it may lead to the identification of the un- 
fortunate man : — 


74 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


1. Bowl of a briarwood pipe, serrated at the 
edge; much worn and blackened; bound with 
string at the screw. 

2. Two patent-lever keys; wards of both 
broken. 

3. Tortoise-shell-handled penknife, silver or 
nickel, name-plate, marked with monogram “B. 
K.” 

4. Envelope, post-mark undecipherable, bear- 
ing a Victorian stamp, addressed to “Miss 
Mon — ” (rest illegible) — “ham” — “nt.” 

5. Imitation crocodile-skin note-book with 
pencil. First forty-five pages blank; four and a 
half illegible; fifteen others filled with private 
memoranda relating chiefly to three persons — a 
Mrs. L. Singleton, abbreviated several times to 
“Lot Single,” “Mrs. S May,” and “Garmison,” 
referred to in places as “Jerry” or “Jack.” 

6. Handle of small-sized hunting-knife. Blade 
snapped short. Buck’s horn, diamond-cut, with 
swivel and ring on the butt; fragment of cotton 
cord attached. 

It must not be supposed that I inventoried all 
these things on the spot as fully as I have here 
written them down. The note-book first at- 
tracted my attention, and I put it in my pocket 
with a view of studying it later on. The rest of 
the articles I conveyed to my burrow for safety’s 
sake, and there, being a methodical man, I in- 
ventoried them. I then returned to the corpse 


MORROWBIE JUKES. 


75 


and ordered Gunga Dass to help me to carry it 
out to the river front. While we were engaged 
in this, the exploded shell of an old brown cart- 
ridge dropped out of one of the pockets and 
rolled at my feet. Gunga Dass had not seen it; 
and I fell to thinking that a man does not carry 
exploded cartridge-cases, especially “browns,” 
which will not bear loading twice, about with 
him when shooting. In other words, that cart- 
ridge-case had been fired inside the crater. Con- 
sequently there must be a gun somewhere. I was 
on the verge of asking Dunga Dass, but checked 
myself, knowing that he would lie. We laid the 
body down on the edge of the quicksand by the 
tussocks. It was my intention to push it out and 
let it be swallowed up — the only possible mode 
of burial that I could think of. I ordered Gunga 
Dass to go away. 

Then I gingerly put the corpse out on the 
quicksand. In doing so, it was laying face down- 
ward, I tore the frail and rotten khaki shooting- 
coat open, disclosing a hideous cavity in the 
back. I have already told you that the dry sand 
had, as it were, mummified the body. A mo- 
ment’s glance showed that the gaping hole had 
been caused by a gunshot wound; the gun must 
have been fired with the muzzle almost touching 
the back. The shooting-coat, being intact, had 
been drawn over the body after death, which 
must have been instantaneous. The secret of 


76 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


the poor wretch’s death was plain to me in a 
flash. Some one of the crater, presumably Gun- 
ga Dass, must have shot him with his own gun 
— the gun that fitted the brown cartridges. He 
had never attempted to escape in the face of the 
rifle-fire from the boat. 

I pushed the corpse out hastily, and saw it sink 
from sight literally in a few seconds. I shud- 
dered as I watched. In a dazed, half-conscious 
way I turned to peruse the notebook. A stained 
and discolored slip of paper had been inserted 
between the binding and the back, and dropped 
out as I opened the pages. This is what it con- 
tained: — “Four out from crow-clump: three left ; 
nine out; two right; three back; two left; fourteen 
out; two left; seven out; one left; nine back; two 
right; six back; four right; seven back.” The 
paper had been burnt and charred at the edges. 
What it meant I could not understand. I sat 
down on the dried bents turning it over and over 
between my fingers, until I was aware of Gunga 
Dass standing immediately behind me with 
glowing eyes and outstretched hands. 

“Have you got it?” he panted. “Will you 
not let me look at it also? I swear that I will re- 
turn it.” 

“Got what? Return what?” I asked. 

“That which you have in your hands. It will 
help us both.” He stretched out his long, bird- 
like talons, trembling with eagerness. 


MORROW BIE JUKES. 


77 


“I could never find it,” he continued. “He 
had secreted it about his person. Therefore I 
shot him, but nevertheless I was unable to ob- 
tain it.” 

Gunga Dass had quite forgotten his little fic- 
tion about the rifle-bullet. I received the in- 
formation perfectly calmly. Morality is blunted 
by consorting with the Dead who are alive. 

“What on earth are you raving about? What 
is it you want me to give you?” 

“The piece of paper in the note-book. It will 
help us both. Oh, you fool! You fool! Can 
you not see what it will do for us? We shall 
! escape!” 

His voice rose almost to a scream, and he 
; danced with excitement before me. I own I was 
i moved at the chance of getting away. 

“Don’t skip! Explain yourself. Do you mean 
to say that this slip of paper will help us? What 
does it mean?” 

“Read it aloud! Read it aloud! I beg and I 
pray to you to read it aloud.” 

I did so. Gunga Dass listened delightedly, and 
drew an irregular line in the sand with his fin- 
gers. 

“See now! It was the length of his gun-bar- 
rels without the stock. I have those barrels. 
Four gun-barrels out from the place where I 
caught crows. Straight out; do you follow me? 
! Then three left — Ah! how well I remember when 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


78 

that man worked it out night after night. Then 
nine out, and so on. Out is always straight be- 
fore you across the quicksand. He told me so 
before I killed him.” 

“But if you knew all this why didn’t you get 
out before?” 

“I did not know it. He told me that he was 
working it out a year and a half ago, and how he 
was working it out night after night when the 
boat had gone away, and he could get out near 
the quicksand safely. Then he said that we 
would get away together. But I was afraid that 
he would leave me behind one night when he had 
worked it all out, and so I shot him. Besides, it 
is not advisable that the men who once get in 
here should escape. Only I. and I am a Brah- 
min.” 

The prospect of escape had brought Gunga 
Dass’s caste back to him. He stood up, walked 
about and gesticulated violently. Eventually I 
managed to make him talk soberly, and he told 
me how this Englishman had spent six months 
night after night in exploring, inch by inch, the 
passage across the quicksand; how he had de- 
clared it to be simplicity itself up to within about 
twenty yards of the river bank after turning the 
flank of the left horn of the horseshoe. This 
much he had evidently not completed when 
Gunga Dass shot him with his own gun. 

In my frenzy of delight at the possibilities of 


MORROWBIE JUKES. 


79 

escape I recollect shaking hands effusively with 
Gunga Dass, after we had decided that we were 
to make an attempt to get away that very night. 
It was weary work waiting throughout the after- 
noon. 

About ten o’clock, as far as I could judge, 
when the Moon had just risen above the lip of 
the crater, Gunga Dass made a move for his bur- 
row to bring out the gun-barrels whereby to 
measure our path. All the other wretched in- 
habitants had retired to their lairs long ago. The 
guardian boat drifted downstream some hours 
before, and we were utterly alone by the crow- 
clump. Gunga Dass, while carrying the gun- 
barrels, let slip the piece of paper which was to 
be our guide. I stooped down hastily to recover 
it, and, as I did so, I was aware that the diabolical 
Brahmin was aiming a violent blow at the back 
of my head with the gun-barrels. It was too late 
to turn round. I must have received the blow 
somewhere on the nape of my neck. A hundred 
thousand fiery stars danced before my eyes, and 
I fell forward senseless at the edge of the quick- 
sand. 

When I recovered consciousness, the Moon 
was going down, and I was sensible of intoler- 
able pain in the back of my head. Gunga Dass 
had disappeared and my mouth was full of blood. 
I laid down again and prayed that I might die 
without more ado. Then the unreasoning fury 


8o 


THE STRANGE RIDE OF 


which I have before mentioned laid' hold upon 
me, and I staggered inland toward the walls of 
the crater. It seemed that some one was calling 
to me in a whisper — “Sahib! Sahib! Sahib!” ex- 
actly as my bearer used to call me in the morn- 
ings. I fancied that I was delirous until a hand- 
ful of sand fell at my feet. Then I looked up and 
saw' a head peering down into the amphitheatre 
— the head of Dunnoo, my dog-boy, who at- 
tended to my coolies. As soon as he had at- 
tracted my attention, he held up his hand and 
showed a rope. I motioned, staggering to and 
fro the while, that he should throw it down. It 
was a couple of leather punkah-ropes knotted to- 
gether, with a loop at one end. I slipped the 
loop over my head and under my arms; heard 
Dunnoo urge something forward; was conscious 
that I was being dragged, face downward, up the 
steep sand slope, and the next instant found my- 
self choked and half fainting on the sand hills 
overlooking the crater. Dunnoo, with his face 
ashy gray in the moonlight, implored me not to 
stay, but to get back to my tent at once. 

It seems that he had tracked Pornic’s foot- 
prints fourteen miles across the sands to the cra- 
ter; had returned and told my servants, who 
flatly refused to meddle with anyone, white or 
black, once fallen into the hideous Village of the 
Dead; whereupon Dunnoo had taken one of my 
ponies and a couple of punkah ropes, returned to 


MORROW B1E JUKES. 


8l 




the crater, and hauled me out as I have de- 
scribed. 

To cut a long story short, Dunnoo is now my 
personal servant on a gold mohur a month — a 
sum which I still think far too little for the ser- 
vices he has rendered. Nothing on earth will in- 
duce me to go near that devilish spot again, or 
to reveal its whereabouts more clearly than I 
have done. Of Gunga Dass I have never found 
a trace, nor do I wish to do. My sole motive in 
giving this to be published is the hope that some 
one may possibly identify, from the details and 
the inventory which I have given above, the 
corpse of the man in the olive-green hunting-suk. 



























































),r< 9 
























































a 











THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 
















THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 

“Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be 
found worthy.” 

The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct 
of life, and one not easy to follow. I have been 
fellow to a beggar again and again under cir- 
cumstances which prevented either of us finding 
out whether the other was worthy. I have still 
to be brother to a Prince, though I once came 
near to kinship with what might have been a 
veritable King and was promised the reversion of 
a Kingdom — army, law-courts, revenue and 
policy all complete. But, to-day, I greatly fear 
that my King is dead, and if I want a crown I 
must go and hunt it for myself. 

The beginning of everything was in a railway 
train upon the road to Mhow from Ajmir. There 
had been a Deficit in the Budget, which necessD 
tated travelling, not Second-class, which is only 
half as dear as First-class, but by Intermediate, 
which is very awful indeed. There are no cush- 
ions in the Intermediate class, and the population 
are either Intermediate, which is Eurasian, or 


86 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


native, which for a long night journey is nasty, 
or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated. 
Intermediates do not patronize refreshment- 
rooms. They carry their food in bundles and 
pots, and buy sweets from the native sweetmeat- 
sellers, and drink the roadside water. That is 
why in the hot weather Intermediates are taken 
out of the carriages dead, and in all weathers are 
most properly looked down upon. 

My particular Intermediate happened to be 
empty till I reached Nasirabad, when a huge 
gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered, and, follow- 
ing the custom of Intermediates, passed the time 
of day. He was a wanderer and a vagabond like 
myself, but with an educated taste for whiskey. 
He told tales of things he had seen and done, of 
out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which 
he had penetrated, and of adventures in which he 
risked his life for a few day’s food. “If India was 
filled with men like you and me, not knowing 
more than the crows where they’d get their next 
day’s rations, it isn’t seventy millions of revenue 
the land would be paying — it’s seven hundred 
millions,” said he; and as I looked at his mouth 
and chin I was disposed to agree with him. We 
talked politics — the politics of Loaferdom that 
sees things from the underside where the lath 
and plaster is not smoothed off — and we talked 
postal arrangements because my friend wanted 
to send a telegram back from the next station to 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 87 

Ajmir, which is the turning-off place from the 
Bombay to the Mhow line as you travel west- 
ward. My friend had no money beyond eight 
annas which he wanted for dinner, and I had no 
money at all, owing to the hitch in the Budget 
before mentioned. Further, I was going into a 
wilderness where, though I should resume touch 
with the Treasury, there were no telegraph 
offices. I was, therefore, unable to help him in 
any way. 

“We might threaten a Station-master, and 
make him send a wire on tick,” said my friend, 
“but that’d mean inquiries for you and for me, 
and Tve got my hands full these days. Did you 
say you are travelling back along this line within 
any days?” 

“Within ten,” I said. 

Can’t you make it eight?” said he. “Mine is 
rather urgent business.” 

“I can send your telegram within ten days if 
that will serve you,” I said. 

“I couldn’t trust the wire to fetch him now I 
think of it. It’s this way. He leaves Delhi on 
the 23d for Bombay. That means he’ll be run- 
ning through Ajmir about the night of the 23d.” 

“But I’m going into the Indian Desert,” I ex- 
plained. 

“Well and good,” said he. “You’ll be chang- 
ing at Marwar Junction to get into Jodhpore ter- 
ritory — you must do that — and he’ll be coming 


88 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


through Marwar Junction in the early morning 
of the 24th by the Bombay Mail. Can you be at 
Marwar Junction on that time? ’Twon’t be in- 
conveniencing you because I know that there’s 
precious few pickings to be got out of these Cen- 
tral India States — even though you pretend to be 
correspondent of the Backwoodsman .” 

“Have you ever tried that trick?” I asked. 

“Again and again, but the Residents find you 
out, and then you get escorted to the Border be- 
fore you’ve time to get your knife into them. But 
about my friend here. I must give him a word 
o’ mouth to tell him what’s come to me or else 
he won’t know where to go. I would take it 
more than kind of you if you were to come out of 
Central India in time to catch him at Marwar 
Junction, and say to him: — ‘He has gone South 
for the week.’ He’ll know what that means. 
He’s a big man with a red beard, and a great 
swell he is. You’ll find him sleeping like a gen- 
tleman with all his luggage round him in a 
Second-class compartment. But don’t you be 
afraid. Slip down the window, and say: — ‘He 
has gone South for the week,’ and he’ll tumble. 
It’s only cutting your time of stay in those parts 
by two days. I ask you as a stranger — going to 
the West,” he said with emphasis. 

“Where have you come from?” said I. 

“From the East,” said he, “and I am hoping 
that you will give him the message on the 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 89 

Square — for the sake of my Mother as well as 
your own.” 

Englishmen are not usually softened by ap- 
peals to the memory of their mothers, but for 
certain reasons, which will be fully apparent, I 
saw fit to agree. , 

“It’s more than a little matter,” said he, “and 
that’s why I ask you to do it — and now I know 
that I can depend on you doing it. A Second- 
class carriage at Marwar Junction, and a red- 
haired man asleep in it. You’ll be sure to re- 
member. I get out at the next station, and I 
must hold on there till he comes or sends me 
what I want.” 

“I’ll give the message if I catch him,” I said, 
“and for the sake of your Mother as well as 
mine I’ll give you a word of advice. Don’t try 
to run the Central India States just now as the 
correspondent of the Backwoodsman. There’s a 
real one knocking about here, and it might lead 
to trouble.” 

“Thank you,” said he simply, “and when will 
the swine be gone? I can’t starve because he’s 
running my work. I wanted to get hold of the 
Degumber Rajah down here about his father’s 
widow, and give him a jump.” 

“What did he do to his father’s widow, then?” 

“Filled her up with red pepper and slippered 
her to death as she hung from a beam. I found 
that out myself, and I’m the only man that would 


9 o 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


dare going into the State to get hush-money for 
it. They’ll try to poison me, same as they did in 
Chortumna when I went on the loot there. But 
you’ll give the man at Marwar Junction my mes- 
sage ?” 

He got out at a little roadside station, and I 
reflected. I had heard, more than once, of men 
personating correspondents of newspapers and 
bleeding small native States with threats of ex- 
posure, but I had never met any of the caste be- 
fore. They lead a hard life, and generally die 
with great suddenness. The Native States have 
a wholesome horror of English newspapers, 
which may throw light on their peculiar methods 
of government, and do their best to choke corre- 
spondents with champagne, or drive them out of 
their mind with four-in-hand barouches. They 
do not understand that nobody cares a straw for 
the internal administration of Native States so 
long as oppression and crime are kept within de- 
cent limits, and the ruler is not drugged, drunk, 
or diseased from one end of the year to the other. 
Native States were created by Providence in 
order to supply picturesque scenery, tigers, and 
tall-writing. They are the dark places of the 
earth, full of unimaginable cruelty, touching the 
Railway and the Telegraph on one side, and, 
on the other, the days of Harun-al-Raschid. 
When I left the train I did business with divers 
Kings, and in eight days passed through many 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


91 


changes of life. Sometimes I wore dress-clothes 
and consorted with Princes and Politicals, drink- 
ing from crystal and eating from silver. Some- 
times I lay out upon the ground and devoured 
what I could get, from a plate made of a flap-jack, 
and drunk the running water, and slept under the 
same rug as my servant. It was all in the day’s 
work. 

Then I headed for the Great Indian Desert 
upon the proper date, as I had promised, and the 
night Mail set me down at Marwar Junction, 
where a funny little, happy-go-lucky, native- 
managed railway runs to Jodhpore. The Bom- 
bay Mail from Delhi makes a short halt at Mar- 
war. She arrived as I got in, and I had just 
time to hurry to her platform and go down the 
carriages. There was only one Second-class on 
the train. I slipped the window and looked down 
upon a flaming red beard, half covered by a rail- 
way rug. That was my man, fast asleep, and I 
dug him gently in the ribs. He woke with a 
grunt and I saw his face in the light of the lamps. 
It was a great and shining face. 

“Tickets again?” said he. 

“No,” said I. “I am to tell you that he is gone 
South for the week. He is gone South for the 
week” 

The train had begun to move out. The red 
man rubbed his eyes. “He has gone South for 
the week,” he repeated. “Now that’s just like 


92 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


his impidence. Did he say that I was to give 
you anything? — ’Cause I won't.” 

“He didn’t,” I said, and dropped away, and 
watched the red lights die out in the dark. It 
was horribly cold because the wind was blowing 
off the sands. I climbed into my own train — not 
an Intermediate Carriage this time — and went to 
sleep. 

If the man with the beard had given me a 
rupee I should have kept it as a memento of a 
rather curious affair. But the consciousness of 
having done my duty was my only reward. 

Later on I reflected that two gentlemen like 
my friends could not do any good if they fore- 
gathered and personated correspondents of 
newspapers, and might, if they “stuck up” one of 
the little rat-trap states of Central India or 
Southern Rajputana get themeselves into serious 
difficulties. I therefore took some trouble to de- 
scribe them as accurately as I could remember to 
people who would be interested in deporting 
them: and succeeded, so I was later informed in 
having them headed back from the Degumber 
borders. 

Then I became respectable, and returned to an 
Office where there were no Kings and no inci- 
dents except the daily manufacture of a news- 
paper. A newspaper office seems to attract every 
conceivable sort of person, to the prejudice of 
discipline. Zenana-mission ladies arrive, and beg 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


93 


that the Editor will instantly abandon all his 
duties to describe a Christian prize-giving in a 
back-slum of a perfectly inaccessible village; 
Colonels who have been overpassed for com- 
mands sit down and sketch the outline of a series 
of ten, twelve, or twenty-four leading articles on 
Seniority versus Selection; missionaries wish to 
know why they have not been permitted to 
escape from their regular vehicles of abuse and 
swear at a brother-missionary under special 
patronage of the editorial We; stranded theatri- 
cal companies troop up to explain that they can- 
not pay for their advertisements, but on their re- 
turn from New Zealand or Tahiti will do so with 
interest; inventors of patent punkah-pulling 
machines, carriage couplings and unbreakable 
swords and axle-trees call with specifications in 
their pockets and hours at their disposals; tea- 
companies enter and elaborate their prospectuses 
with the office pens; secretaries of ball committees 
clamor to have the glories of their last dance 
more fully expounded; strange ladies* rustle in 
and say: — “I want a hundred lady’s cards 
printed at once, please,” which is manifestly part 
of an Editor’s duty; and every dissolute ruffian 
that ever tramped the Grand Trunk Road makes 
it his business to ask for employment as a proof- 
reader. And, all the time, the telephone-bell is 
ringing madly, and Kings are being killed on the 
Continent, and Empires are saying — “You’re 


94 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


another,” and Mister Gladstone is calling down 
brimstone upon the British Dominions, and the 
little black copy-boys are whining, “kaa~pi chay- 
ha-yeh” (copy wanted) like tired bees, and most 
of the paper is as blank as Modred’s shield. 

But that is the amusing part of the year. 
There are other six months wherein none ever 
come to call, and the thermometer walks inch by 
inch up to the top of the glass, and the office is 
darkened to just above reading-light, and the 
press machines are red-hot of touch, and nobody 
writes anything but accounts of amusements in 
the Hill-stations, or obituary notices. Then the 
telephone becomes a tinkling terror, because it 
tells you of the sudden deaths of men and women 
that you knew intimately, and the prickly-heat 
covers you as with a garment, and you sit down 
and write: — “A slight increase of sickness is 
reported from the Khuda Janta Khan District. 
The outbreak is purely sporadic in its nature, 
and, thanks to the energetic efforts of the District 
authorities, is now almost at an end. It is, how- 
ever, with deep regret we record the death, etc.” 

Then the sickness really breaks out, and the 
less recording and reporting the better for the 
peace of the subscribers. But the Empires and 
Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly 
as before, and the Foreman thinks that a daily 
paper really ought to come out once in twenty- 
four hours, and all the people at the Hill-stations 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


95 


in the middle of their amusements say: — “Good 
gracious! Why can’t the paper be sparkling? 
I’m sure there’s plenty going on up here.” 

That is the dark half of the moon, and, as the 
advertisements say, “must be experienced to be 
appreciated.” 

It was in that season, and a remarkably evil 
season, that the paper began running the last 
issue of the week on Saturday night, which is to 
say Sunday morning, after the custom of a Lon- 
don paper. This was a great convenience, for 
immediately after the paper was put to bed, the 
dawn would lower the thermometer from 96° to 
almost 84° for half an hour, and in that chill — 
you have no idea how cold is 84° on the grass 
until you begin to pray for it — a very tired man 
could set off to sleep ere the heat roused him. 

One Saturday night it was my pleasant duty to 
put the paper to bed alone. A King or courtier 
or a courtesan or a community was going to die 
or get a new Constitution, or do something that 
was important on the other side of the world, 
and the paper was to be held open till the latest 
possible minute in order to catch the telegram. 
It was a pitchy black night, as stifling as a June 
night can be, and the loo, the red-hot wind from 
the westward, was booming among the tinder- 
dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its 
heels. Now and again a spot of almost boiling 
water would fall on the dust with the flop of a 


96 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 

frog, but all our weary world knew that was only 
pretence. It was a shade cooler in the press- 
room than the office, so I sat there, while the 
type ticked and clicked, and the night-jars 
hooted at the windows, and the all but naked 
compositors wiped the sweat from their fore- 
heads and called for water. The thing that was 
keeping us back, whatever it was, would not 
come off, though the loo dropped and the last 
type was set, and the whole round earth stood 
still in the choking heat, with his finger on its 
lip to wait the event. I drowsed, and wondered 
whether the telegraph was a blessing, and 
whether this dying man, or struggling people, 
was aware of the inconvenience the delay was 
causing. There was no special reason beyond 
the heat and worry to make tension, but, as the 
clock-hands crept up to three o’clock and the 
machines spun their fly-wheels two and three 
times to see that all was in order, before I said 
the word that would set them off, I could have 
shrieked aloud. 

Then the roar and rattle of the wheels shivered 
the quiet into little bits. I rose to go away, but 
two men in white clothes stood in front of me. 
The first one said: — “It’s him!’ The second 
said: — “So it is!” And they both laughed al- 
most as loudly as the machinery roared, and 
mopped their foreheads. “We see there was a 
light burning across the road and we were sleep" 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


97 

ing in that ditch there for coolness, and I said to 
my friend here, The office is open. Let’s come 
along and speak to him as turned us back from 
the Degumber State,” said the smaller of the 
two. He was the man I had met in the Mhow 
train, and his fellow was the red-bearded man of 
Marwar Junction. There was no mistaking the 
eye-brows of the one or the beard of the other. 

I was not pleased, because I wished to go to 
sleep, not to squabble with loafers. “What do 
you want?” I asked. 

“Half an hour’s talk with you cool and com- 
fortable, in the office,” said the red-bearded man. 
“We’d like some drink — the Contrack doesn’t 
begin yet, Peachey, so you needn’t look — but 
what we really want is advice. We don’t want 
money. We ask you as a favor, because you did 
us a bad turn about Degumber.” 

I led from the press-room to the stifling office 
with the maps on the walls, and the red-haired 
man rubbed his hands. “That’s something like,” 
said he. “This was the proper shop to come to. 
Now, Sir, let me introduce to you Brother 
Peachey Carnehan, that’s him, and Brother 
Daniel Dravot, that is me, and the less said about 
our professions the better, for we have been most 
things in our time. Soldier, sailor, compositor, 
photographer, proof-reader, street-preacher, and 
correspondents of the Backwoodsman when we 
thought the paper wanted one. Carnehan is 


9 8 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 

sober, and so am I. Look at us first and see 
that’s sure. It will save you cutting into my 
talk. We’ll take one of your cigars apiece, and 
you shall see us light.” 

I watched the tests. The men were absolutely 
sober, so I gave them each a tepid peg. 

“Well and good,” said Carnehan of the eye- 
brows, wiping the froth from his mustache. “Let 
me talk now, Dan. We have been all over India, 
mostly on foot. We have been boiler-fitters, 
engine-drivers, petty contractors, and all that, 
and we have decided that India isn’t big enough 
for such as us.” 

They certainly were too big for the office. 
Dravot’s beard seemed to fill half the room and 
Carnehan’s shoulders the other half, as they sat 
on the big table. Carnehan continued: — “The 
country isn’t half worked out because they that 
governs it won’t let you touch it. They spend 
all their blessed time in governing it, and you 
can’t lift a spade, nor chip a rock, nor look for 
oil, nor anything like that without all the Gov- 
ernment saying — ‘Leave it alone and let us gov- 
ern.’ Therefore, such as it is, we will let it alone, 
and go away to some other place where a man 
isn’t crowded and can come to his own. We are 
not little men, and there is nothing that we are 
afraid of except Drink, and we have signed a 
Contrack on that. Therefore, we are going away 
to be Kings.” 

“Kings in our own right,” muttered Dravot. 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


99 


“Yes, of course,” I said. “You’ve been tramp- 
ing in the sun, and it’s a very warm night, and 
hadn’t you better sleep over the notion? Come 
to-morrow.” 

“Neither drunk nor sunstruck,” said Dravot. 
“We have slept over the notion half a year, and 
require to see Books and Atlases, and we have 
decided that there is only one place now in the 
world that two strong men can Sar-a -whack. 
They call it Kafiristan. By my reckoning it’s the 
top right-hand corner of Afghanistan, not more 
i than three hundred miles from Peshawar. They 
have two and thirty heathen idols there, and we’ll 
be the thirty-third. It’s a mountaineous coun- 
try, and the women of those parts are very 
beautiful.” 

“But that is provided against in the Contrack,” 
said Carnehan. “Neither Women nor Liqu-or, 
Daniel.” 

“And that’s all we know, except that no one 
has gone there, and they fight, and in any place 
where they can fight a man who knows how to 
drill men can always be a King. We shall go to 
those parts and say to any King we find — ‘D’ 
you want to vanquish your foes?’ and we will 
show him how to drill men; for that we know 
better than anything else. Then we will subvert 
that King and seize his Throne and establish a 
Dy-nasty.” 

“You’ll be cut to pieces before you’re fifty 


!00 the man who would be king. 

miles across the Border,” I said. “You have to 
travel through Afghanistan to get to that coun- 
try. It’s one mass of mountains and peaks and 
glaciers, and no Englishman has been through it. 
The people are utter brutes, and even if you 
reached them you couldn’t do anything.” 

“That’s more like,” said Carnehan. “If you 
could think us a little more mad we would be 
more pleased. We have come to you to know 
about this country, to read a book about it, and 
to be shown maps. We want you to tell us that 
we are fools and to show us your books.” He 
turned to the book-cases. 

“Are you at all in earnest?” I said. 

“A little,” said Dravot sweetly. “As big a 
map as y’s have got, even if it’s all blank where 
Kafiristan is, and any books you’ve got. We can 
read, though we aren’t very educated.” 

I uncased the big thirty-two-miles-to-the-inch 
map of India, and two smaller Frontier maps 
hauled down volume INF-KAN of the Encyclo- 
paedia Brittanica, and the men consulted them. 

“See here!” said Dravot, his thumb on the 
map. “Up to Jagdallak, Peachey and me know 
the road. We was there with Roberts’s Army. 
We’ll have to turn off to the right at Jagdallak 
through Laghmann territory. Then we get 
among the hills — fourteen thousand feet — fifteen 
thousand — it will be cold work there, but it don’t 
look very far on the map.” 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. ioi 

I handed him Wood on the Sources of the 
Oxas. Carnehan was deep in the Encyclopaedia _ 

“They’re a mixed lot,” said Dravot reflec- 
tively; “and it won’t help us to know the names 
of their tribes. The more tribes the more they’ll 
fight, and the better for us. From Jagdallak to 
Ashang. H’mm!” 

“But all the information about the country is 
as sketchy and inaccurate as can be,” I protested. 
“No one knows anything about it really. Here’s 
the file of the United Services’ Institute. Read 
what Bellew says.” 

“Blow Bellew!” said Carnehan. “Dan, they’re 
an all-fired lot of heathen, but this book here 
says they think they’re related to us English.” 

I smoked while the men pored over Raverty r 
Wood , the maps and the Encyclopaedia. 

“There is no use your waiting,” said Dravot 
politely. “IBs about four o’clock now. We’ll 
go before six o’clock if you want to sleep, and 
we won’t steal any of the papers. Don’t you sit 
up. We’re two harmless lunatics, and if you 
come to-morrow evening, down to the Serai 
we’ll say good-by to you.” 

“You are two fools,” I answered. “You’ll be 
turned back at the Frontier or cut up the minute 
you set foot in Afghanistan. Do you want any 
money or a recommendation down-country? I 
can help you to the chance of work next week.” 

“Next week we shall be hard at work our- 


102 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


selves, thank you,” said Dravot. “It isn’t so easy 
being a King as it looks. When we’ve got our 
Kingdom in order we’ll let you know, and you 
can come up and help us to govern it.” 

“Would two lunatics make a Contrack like 
that?” said Carnehan, with subdued pride, show- 
ing me a greasy half-sheet of note-paper on 
which was written the following. I copied it, 
then and there, as a curiosity: — 

This Contract between me and you persuing wit- 
nesseth in the name of God — Amen and so forth. 

( One ) That me and you will settle this matter to- 
gether: i. e., to be Kings of Kafirista7i. 

( Two ) That you and me will not , while this mat- 
ter is being settled , look at any Liquor, nor 
any Woman, black, white or brown, so as 
to get mixed up with one or the other harm- 
ful. 

{Three) That we conduct ourselves with dignity 
and discretion, and if o?ie of us gets into 
trouble the other will stay by him. 

Signed by you and me this day. 

Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan. 

Daniel Dravot. 

Both Gentlemen at Laige. 

“There was no need for the last article,” said 
Carnehan, blushing modestly; “but it looks 
regular. Now you know the sort of men that 
loafers are — we are loafers, Dan, until we get out 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


103 


of India — and do you think that we would sign a 
Contrack like that unless we was in earnest? We 
have kept away from the two things that make 
life worth having.” 

“You won’t enjoy your lives much longer if 
you are going to try this idiotic adventure. Don’t 
set the office on fire,” I said, “ and go away be- 
fore nine o’clock.” 

I left them still poring over the maps and 
making notes on the back of the “Contrack.” 
“Be sure to come down to the Serai to-morrow,” 
were their parting words. 

The Kumharsen Serai is the great four-square 
sink of humanity where the strings of camels and 
horses from the North load and unload. All the 
nationalities of Central Asia may be found there, 
and most of the folk of India proper. Balkh and 
Bokhara there meet Bengal and Bombay, and try 
to draw eye-teeth. You can buy ponies, tur- 
quoises, Persian pussycats, saddle-bags, fat- 
tailed sheep, and musk in the Kumharsen Serai, 
and get many strange things for nothing. In the 
afternoon I went down there to see whether my 
friends intended to keep their word or were lying 
about drunk. 

A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and 
rags stalked up to me, gravely twisting a child’s 
paper whirlgig. Behind him was his servant 
bending under the load of a crate of mud toys. 
The two were loading up two camels, and the in- 


104 THE MAN WH0 WOULD BE KING. 

habitants of the Serai watched them with shrieks 
of laughter. 

“The priest is mad,” said a horse-dealer to me. 
“He is going up to Kabul to sell toys to the 
Amir. He will either be raised to honor or have 
his head cut off. He came in here this morning 
and has been behaving madly ever since.” 

“The witless are under the protection of God,” 
stammered a flat-cheeked Usbeg in broken 
Hindi. “They foretell future events.” 

“Would they could have foretold that my 
caravan would have been cut up by the Shin- 
waris almost within shadow of the Pass!” 
grunted the Eusufzai agent of a Rajputana trad- 
ing-house whose goods had been feloniously 
diverted into the hands of other robbers just 
across the Border, and whose misfortunes were 
the laughing-stock of the bazar. “Ohe, priest, 
whence come you and whither do you go?” 

“From Roum have I come,” shouted the 
priest, waving his whirligig; “from Roum, 
blown by the breath of a hundred devils across 
the sea! O thieves, robbers, liars, the blessing 
of Pir Khan on pigs, dogs, and perjurers! Who 
will take the Protected of God to the North to 
sell charms that are never still to the Amir? The 
camels shall not gall, the sons shall not fall sick, 
and the wives shall remain faithful while they 
are away, of the men who give me place in their 
caravan. Who will assist me to slipper the King 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 105 

of the Roos with a golden slipper with a silver 
heel? The protection of Pir Khan be upon his 
labors!” He spread out the skirts of his gaber- 
dine and pirouetted between the lines of tethered 
horses. 

“There starts a caravan from Peshawar to 
Kabul in twenty days, Huzrut,” said the Eu- 
sufzai trader. “My camels go therewith. Do 
thou also go and bring us good luck.” 

“I will go even now!” shouted the priest. “I 
will depart upon my winged camels, and be at 
Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir Khan,” he 
yelled to his servant, “drive out the camels, but 
let me first mount my own.” 

He leaped on the back of his beast as it knelt, 
and, turning round to me, cried: — “Come thou 
also, Sahib, a little along the road, and I will sell 
thee a charm — an amulet that shall make thee 
King of Kafiristan.” 

Then the light broke upon me, and I followed 
the two camels out of the Serai till we reached 
open road and the priest halted. 

“What d’ you think o’ that?” said he in Eng- 
lish. “Carnehan can’t talk their patter, so I’ve 
made him my servant. He makes a handsome 
servant. ’Tisn’t for nothing that I’ve been 
knocking about the country for fourteen years. 
Didn’t I do that talk neat? We’ll hitch on to a 
caravan at Peshawar till we get to Jagdallak, and 
then we’ll see if we can get donkeys for our 


106 the man who would be king. 


camels, and strike into Kafirstan. Whirligigs 
for the Amir, O Lor! Put your hand under the 
camel-bags and tell me what you feel.” 

I felt the but of a Martini, and another and an- 
other. 

“Twenty of ’em,” said Dravot placidly. 
“Twenty of ’em, and ammunition to correspond, 
under the whirligigs and the mud dolls.” 

“Heaven help you if you are caught with those 
things!” I said. “A Martini is worth her weight 
in silver among the Pathans.” 

“Fifteen hundred rupees of capital — every 
rupee we could beg, borrow, or steal — are in- 
vested on these two camels,’ ’said Dravot. “We 
won’t get caught. We’re going through the 
Khaiber with a regular caravan. Who’d touch 
a poor mad priest?” 

“Have you got everything you want?” I 
asked, overcome with astonishment. 

“Not yet, but we shall soon. Give us a me- 
mento of your kindness, Brother. You did me a 
service yesterday, and that time in Marwar. 
Half my Kingdom shall you have, as the saying 
is.” I slipped a small charm compass from my 
watch-chain and handed it up to the priest. 

“Good-by,” said Dravot, giving me his hand 
cautiously. “It’s the last time we’ll shake hands 
with an Englishman these many days. Shake 
hands with him, Carnehan,” he cried, as the 
second camel passed me. 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


107 


Carnehan leaned down and shook hands. 
Then the camels passed away along the dusty 
road, and I was left alone to wonder. My eye 
could detect no failure in the disguises. The 
scene in the Serai attested that they were com- 
plete to the native mind. There was just the 
chance, therefore, that Carnehan and Dravot 
would be able to wander through Afghanistan 
without detection. But, beyond, they would find 
death, certain and awful death. 

Ten days later a native friend of mine, giving 
me the news of the day from Peshawar, wound 
up his letter with: — -“There has been much 
laughter here on account of a certain mad priest 
who is going in his estimation to sell petty gauds 
and insignificant trinkets which he ascribes as 
great charms to H. H. the Amir of Bokhara. He 
passed through Peshawar and asociated himself 
to the Second Summer caravan that goes to 
Kabul. The merchants are pleased because 
through superstition they imagine that such mad 
fellows bring good-fortune.” 

The two, then, were beyond the Border. I 
would have prayed for them, but, that night, a 
real King died in Europe, and demanded an 
obituary notice. 

The wheel of the world swings through the 
same phases again and again. Summer passed 
and winter thereafter, and came and passed 


ioS the man who would be king. 


again. The daily paper continued and I with it, 
and upon the third summer there fell a hot night, 
a night-issue, and a strained waiting for some- 
thing to be telegraphed from the other side of 
the world, exactly as had happened before. A 
few great men had died in the past two years, the 
machines worked with more clatter, and some of 
the trees in the Office garden were a few feet 
taller. But that was all the difference. 

I passed over to the press-room, and went 
through just such a scene as I have already de- 
scribed. The nervous tension was stronger than 
it had been two years before, and I felt the heat 
more acutely. At three o’clock I cried, “Print 
off,” and turned to go, when there crept to my 
chair what was left of a man. He was bent into 
a circle, his head was sunk between his should- 
ers, and he moved his feet one over the other like 
a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked 
or crawled — this rag-wrapped, whining cripple 
who addressed me by name, crying that he was 
come back. “Can you give me a drink?” he 
whimpered. “For the Lord’s sake, give me a 
drink!” 

I went back to the office, the man following 
with groans of pain, and I turned up the lamp. 

“Don’t you know me?” he gasped, dropping 
into a chair, and he turned his drawn face, sur- 
mounted by a shock of gray hair, to the light. 

I looked at him intently. Once before had I 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 109 

seen eyebrows that met over the nose in an inch- 
broad black band, but for the life of me I could 
not tell where. 

“I don’t know you,” I said, handing- him the 
whiskey. “What can I do for you?” 

He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered 
in spite of the suffocating heat. 

“I’ve come back,” he repeated “and I was 
the King of Kafiristan — me and Dravot — 
crowned Kings we was! In this office we set- 
tled it — you setting there and giving us the 
books. I am Peachey — Peachey Taliaferro Car- 
nehan, and you’ve been setting here ever since — 
O Lord!” 

I was more than a little astonished, and ex- 
pressed my feelings acordingly. 

“It’s true,” said Carnehan, with a dry cackle, 
nursing his feet, which were wrapped in rags. 
“True as gospel. Kings we were, with crowns 
upon our heads — me and Dravot — poor Dan — 
oh, poor, poor Dan, that would never take ad- 
vice, not though I begged of him!” 

“Take the whiskey,” I said, “and take your 
own time. Tell me all you can recollect of every- 
thing from beginning to end. You got across 
the border on your camels, Dravot dressed as a 
mad priest and you as his servant. Do you re- 
member that?” 

“I ain’t mad — yet, but I shall be that way 
soon. Of course I remember. Keep looking at 


TI0 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 

me, or maybe my words will go all to pieces. 
Keep looking at me in my eyes and don’t say 
anything.” 

I leaned forward and looked into his face as 
steadily as I could. He dropped one hand upon 
the table and I grasped it by the wrist. It was 
twisted like a bird’s claw, and upon the back was 
a ragged, red, diamond-shaped scar. 

“No, don’t look there. Look at me” said 
Carnehan. 

“That comes afterwards, but for the Lord’s 
sake don’t distrack me. We left with that cara- 
van, me and Dravot playing all sorts of antics to 
amuse the people we were with. Dravot used to 
make us laugh in the evenings when all the peo- 
ple was cooking their dinners — cooking their 
dinners, and . . . what did they do then? 

They lit little fires with sparks that went into 
Dravot’s beard, and we all laughed — fit to die. 
Little red fires they was, going into Dravot’s big 
red beard — so funny.” His eyes left mine and 
he smiled foolishly. 

“You went as far as Jagdallak with that cara- 
van,” I said at a venture, “after you had lit those 
fires. To Jagdallak, where you turned off to try 
to get into Kafiristan.” 

“No, we didn’t neither. What are you talking 
about? We turned off before Jagdallak, be- 
cause we heard the roads was good. But they 
wasn’t good enough for our two camels — mine 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. hi 


and Dravot’s. When we left the caravan, Dra- 
! vot took off all his clothes and mine too, and said 
I we would be heathen, because the Kafirs didn’t 
! allow Mohammedans to talk to them. So we 
I. dressed betwixt and between, and such a sight as 
|; Daniel Dravot I never saw yet nor expect to see 
|: again. He burned half his beard, and slung a 
I sheep-skin over his houlder, and shaved his head 
into patterns. He shaved mine, too, and made 
me wear outrageous things to look like a 
i heathen. That was in a most mountaineous 
country, and our camels couldn’t go along any 
more because of the mountains. They were tall 
and black, and coming home I saw them fight 
like wild goats — there are lots of goats in Kafir- 
istan. And these mountains, they never keep 
still, no more than the goats. Always fighting 
they are, and don’t let you sleep at night.’ 

“Take some more whiskey,” I* said very 
i slowly. “What did you and Daniel Dravot do 
when the camels could go no further because of 
the rough roads that led to Kafiristan?’ 

“What did which do? There was a party 
called Peachey Taliafero Carnehan that was with 
Dravot. Shall I tell you about him? He died 
out there in the cold. Slap from the bridge fell 
old Peachey, turning and twisting in the air like 
a penny whirligig that you can sell to the Amir. 
— No; they was two for three ha’pence, those 
whirligigs, or I am much mistaken and woeful 


1 12 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


sore. And then these camels were no use, and 
Peachey said to Dravot — Tor the Lord’s sake, 
let’s get out of this before our heads are chopped 
off,’ and with that they killed the camels all 
among the mountains, not having anything in 
particular to eat, but first they took off the boxes 
with the guns and ammunition, till two men came j 
along driving four mules. Dravot up and dances I 
in front of them, singing, — 'Sell me four mules/ 1 
Says the first man, — 'If you are rich enough to 
buy, you are rich enough to rob;’ but before 
ever he could put his hand to his knife, Dravot j 
breaks his neck over his knee, and the other 
party runs away. So Carnehan loaded the ; 
mules with the rifles that was taken off the i 
camels, and together we starts forward into 
those bitter cold mountaineous parts, and never 
a road broader than the back of your hand.” 

He paused for a moment, while I asked him if 
he could remember the nature of the country 
through which he had journeyed. 

“I am telling you as straight as I can, but my 
head isn’t as good as it might be. They drove 
nails through it to make me hear better how 
Dravot died. The country was mountaineous 
and them mules were most contrary, and the in- ■ 
habitants was dispersed and solitary. They went 
up and up, and down and down, and that other 
party, Carnehan, was imploring of Dravot not to 
sing and whistle so loud, for fear of bringing: 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 113 ; 

down the tremenjus avalanches. But Dravot 
says that if a King couldn’t sing it wasn’t worth 
being King, and whacked the mules over the: 
rump, and never took heed for ten cold days. 
We came to a big level valley all among the 
mountains, and the mules were near dead, so we 
killed them, not having anything in special for 
them or us to eat. We sat upon the boxes, and 
played odd and even with the cartridges that was 
jolted out. 

“Then ten men with bows and arrows ran 
down that valley, chasing twenty men with bows 
and arrows, and the row was tremenjus. They 
was fair men — fairer than you or me — with 
yellow hair and remarkable well built. Says 
Dravot, unpacking the guns — ‘This is the begin- 
ning of the business. We’ll fight for the ten 
men,’ and with that he fires two rifles at the 
twenty men, and drops one of them at two hun- 
dred yards from the rock where we was sitting. 
The other men began to run, but Carnehan and 
Dravot sits oh the boxes picking them off at all 
ranges, up and down the valley. Then we goes 
up to the ten men that had run across the snow 
too, and they fires a footy little arrow at us. 
Dravot he shoots above their heads and they all 
falls down flat. Then he walks over them and 
kicks tnem, and then he lifts them up and shakes 
hand all around to make them friendly like. He 
calls them and gives them the boxes to carry,. 


1 1 4 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


and waves his hand for all the world as though 
he was King already. They takes the boxes 
and him across the valley and up the hill into a 
pine wood on the top, where there was half a 
dozen big stone idols. Dravot he goes to the 
biggest — a fellow they call Imbra — and lays a 
rifle and a cartridge at his feet, rubbing his nose 
respectfully with his own nose, patting him on 
the head, and saluting in front of it. He turns 
round to the men and nods his head, and says, — 
‘That’s all right. I’m in the know too, and all 
these old jim-jams are my friends.’ Then he 
opens his mouth and points down it, and when 
the first man brings him food, he says — ‘No;’ 
and when the second man brings him food, he 
says — ‘No;’ but when one of the old priests and 
the boss of the village brings him food, he says — 
‘Yes;’ very haughty, and eats it slow. That was 
how we came to our first village, without any 
trouble, just as though we had tumbled from the 
skies. But we tumbled from one of those 
damned rope-bridges, you see, and you couldn’t 
expect a man to laugh much after that.” 

“Take some more whiskey and go on,” I said. 
“That was the first village you came into. How 
did you get to be King?” 

“I wasn’t King,” said Carnehan. “Dravot he 
was the King, and a handsome man he looked 
with the gold crown on his head and all. Him 
and the other party stayed in that village, and 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


11 $ 

every morning Dravot sat by the side of old Im- 
bra, and the people came and worshipped. That 
was Dravot’s order. Then a lot of men came 
into the valley, and Carnehan and Dravot picks 
them off with the rifles before they knew where 
they was, and runs down into the valley and up- 
again the other side, and finds another village, 
same as the first one, and the people all falls 
down flat on their faces, and Dravot says, — ‘Now 
what is the trouble between you two villages ?’ 
and the people points to a woman, as fair as you 
or me, that was carried off, and Dravot takes her 
back to the first village and counts up the dead — 
eight there was. For each dead man Dravot 
pours a little milk on the ground and waves his 
arms like a whirligig and ‘That’s all right/ says 
he. Then he and Carnehan takes the big boss of 
each village by the arm and walks them down 
into the valley, and shows them how to scratch a 
line with a spear right down the valley, and gives 
each a sod of turf from both sides o’ the line. 
Then all the people comes down and shouts like 
the devil and all, and Dravot says, — ‘Go and dig 
the land, and be fruitful and multiply/ which they 
did, though they didn’t understand. Then we 
asks the names of things in their lingo — bread 
and water and fire and idols and such, and Dravot 
leads the priest of each village up to the idol, and 
says he must sit there and judge the people, and 
if anything goes wrong he is to be shot. 


Ii6 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


“Next week they was all turning up the land in 
the valley as quiet as bees and much prettier, and 
the priests heard all the complaints and told Dra- 
vot in dumb show what it was about. ‘That’s 
just the beginning,’ says Dravot. ‘They think 
we’re Gods.’ He and Carnehan picks out twenty 
good men and shows them how to click off a rifle, 
and form fours, and advance in line, and they was 
very pleased to do so, and clever to see the hang 
of it. Then he takes out his pipe and his baccy- 
pouch and leaves one at one village, and one at 
the other, and off we two goes to see what was 
to be done in the next valley. That was all rock, 
and there was a little village there, and Carnehan 
.says, — ‘Send ’em to the old valley to plant,’ and 
takes ’em there and gives em’ some land that 
wasn’t took before. They were a poor lot, and 
we blooded ’em with a kid before letting ’em into 
the new Kingdom. That was to impress the 
people, and then they settled down quiet, and 
Carnehan went back to Dravot who had got into 
another valley, all snow and ice and most moun- 
taineous. There was no people there and the 
Army got afraid, so Dravot shoots one of them, 
and goes on till he finds some people in a village, 
and the Army explains that unless the people 
wants to be killed they had better not shoot their 
little matchlocks; for they had matchlocks. We 
makes friends with the priest and I stays there 
alone with two of the Army, teaching the men 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. \\y 

how to drill, and a thundering big Chief comes 
across the snow with kettledrums and horns 
twanging, because he heard there was a new God 
kicking about. Carnehan sights for the brown 
of the men half a mile across the snow and wings 
one of them. Then he sends a message to the 
Chief that, unless he wished to be killed, he must 
come and shake hands with me and leave his 
arms behind. The Chief comes alone first, and 
Carnehan shakes hands with him and whirls his. 
arms about, same as Dravot used, and very much 
surprised that Chief was, and strokes my eye- 
brows. Then Carnehan goes alone to the Chief, 
and asks him in dumb show if he had an enemy" 
he hated. ‘I have/ says the Chief. So Carnehan 
weeds out the pick of his men and sets the two of 
the Army to show them drill and at the end of 
two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well 
as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief tO’ 
a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and 
the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes 
it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the 
enemy. So we took that village too, and I gives 
the Chief a rag from my coat and says, ‘Occupy 
till I come/ which was scriptural. By way of a 
reminder, when me and the Army was eighteen 
hundreds yards away, I drops a bullet near him 
standing on the snow, and all the people falls flat: 
on their faces. Then I sends a letter to Dravot. 
wherever he be by land or by sea.” 


Ii 8 the man who would be king. 


At the risk of throwing the creature out of 
train I interrupted, — “How could you write a 
letter up yonder?” 

“The letter? — Oh! — The letter! Keep looking 
at me between the eyes, please. It was a string- 
talk letter, that we’d learned the way of it from 
a blind beggar in the Punjab.” 

I remember that there had once come to the 
office a blind man with a knotted twig and a 
piece of string which he wound round the twig 
according to some cypher of his own. He could 
after the lapse of days or hours, repeat the sen- 
tence which he had reeled up. Pie had reduced 
the alphabet to eleven primitive sounds; and 
tried to teach me his method, but failed. 

“I sent that letter to Dravot,” said Carnehan; 
““and told him to come back because this King- 
dom was growing too big for me to handle, and 
then I struck for the first valley, to see how the 
priests were working. They called the village 
we took along with the Chief, Bashkai, and the 
first village we took, Er-Heb. The priests at 
Er-Heb was doing all right, but they had a lot of 
pending cases about land to show me, and some 
men from another village had been firing arrows 
at night. I went out and looked for that village 
and fired four rounds at it from a thousand yards. 
That used all the cartridges I cared to spend, 
and I waited for Dravot, who had been away two 
or three months, and I kept my people quiet.” 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 119 

“One morning I heard the devil’s own noise of 
drums and horns, and Dan Dravot marches down 
the hill with his Army and a tail of hundreds of 
men, and, which was the most amazing — a great 
gold crown on his head. ‘My Gord, Canadian,’ 
says Daniel, ‘this is a tremenjus business, and 
we’ve got the whole country as far as it’s worth 
having. I am the son of Alexander by Queen 
Semiramis, and you’re my younger brother and 
a God too! It’s the biggest thing we’ve ever 
seen. I’ve been marching and fighting for six 
weeks with the Army, and every footy little 
village for fifty miles has come in rejoiceful; and 
more than that, I’ve got the key of the whole 
show, as you’ll see, and I’ve got a crown for you ! 
I told ’em to make two of ’em at a place called 
Shu, where the gold lies in the rock like suet in 
mutton. Gold I’ve seen and turquoise I’ve kicked 
out of the cliffs, and there’s garnets in the sands 
of the river, and here’s a chunk of amber that a 
man brought me. Call up all the priests and, 
here, take your crown.’ 

“One of the men opens a black hair bag and I 
slips the crown on. It was too small and too 
heavy, but I wore it for the glory. Hammered 
gold it was — five pound weight, like a hoop of a 
barrel. 

“ Peachey,’ says Dravot, ‘we don’t want to 
fight no more. The Craft’s the trick so help me!’ 
and he brings forward that same Chief that I left 


120 THE man who would be king. 


at Bashkai — Billy Fish we called him afterwards, 
because he was so like Billy Fish that drove the 
big tank-engine at Mach on the Bolan in the old 
days. ‘Shake hands with him/ says Dravot, and 
I shook hands and nearly dropped, for Billy Fish 
gave me the Grip. I said nothing, but tried him 
with the Fellow Craft Grip. He answers, all 
right, and I tried the Master’s Grip, but that was 
a slip. ‘A Fellow Craft he is!’ I says to Dan. 
‘Does he know the word?’ ‘He does/ says Dan, 
‘and all the priests know. It’s a miracle! The 
Chiefs and the priests can work a Fellow Craft 
Lodge in a way that’s very like ours, and they’ve 
cut the marks on the rocks, but they don’t know 
the Third Degree, and they’ve come to find out. 
It’s Gord’s Truth. T’ve known these long years 
that the Afghans knew up to the Fellow Craft 
Degree, but this is a miracle. A God and a 
Grand-Master of the Craft am I, and a Lodge in 
the Third Degree I will open, and we’ll raise the 
head priests and the Chiefs of the villages.’ 

“ ‘It’s against all the law,’ I says, ‘holding a 
Lodge without warrant from any one; and we 
never held office in any Lodge.’ 

“ ‘It’s a master-stroke of policy,’ says Dravot. 
‘It means running the country as easy as a four- 
wheeled bogy on a down grade. We can’t stop 
to inquire now, or they’ll turn against us. I’ve 
forty Chiefs at my heel, and passed and raised 
.according to their merit they shall be. Billet 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 121 

these men on the villages and see that we run up 
a Lodge of some kind. The temple of Imbra 
will do for the Lodge-room. The women must 
make aprons as you show them. I’ll hold a levee 
of Chiefs to-night and Lodge to-morrow.’ 

“I was fair run off my legs, but I wasn’t such a 
fool as not to see what a pull this Craft business 
gave us. I showed the priests’ families how to 
make aprons of the degrees, but for Dravot’s 
apron the blue border and marks was made of 
turquoise lumps on white hide, not cloth. We 
took a great square stone in the temple for the 
Master’s chair, and little stones for the officers’ 
chairs, and painted the black pavement with 
white squares, and did what we could to make 
things regular. 

“At the levee which was held that night on 
the hillside with big bonfires, Dravot gives out 
that him and me were Gods and sons of Alex- 
ander, and Past Grand-Masters in the Craft, and 
was come to make Kafiristan a country where 
every man should eat in peace and drink in quiet, 
and specially obey us. Then the Chiefs come 
round to shake hands, and they were so hairy and 
white and fair it was just shaking hands with old 
friends. We gave them names according as they 
was like men we had known in India — Billy Fish, 
Holly Dilworth, Pikky Kergan that was Bazar- 
master when I was at Mhow, and so on and 
so on. 


I2 2 the man who would be king. 

“ The most amazing miracle was at Lodge next 
night. One of the old priests was watching us 
continuous, and I felt uneasy, for I knew we’d 
have to fudge the Ritual, and I didn’t know what 
the men knew. The old priest was a stranger 
come in from beyond the village of Bashkai. The 
minute Dravot puts on the Master’s apron that 
the girls had made for him, the priest fetches a 
whoop and a howl, and tries to overturn the 
stone that Dravot was sitting on. Tt’s all up 
now,’ I says. ‘That comes of meddling with the 
Craft without warrant!’ Dravot never winked an 
eye, not when ten priests took and tilted over the 
Grand-Master’s chair — which was to say the 
stone of Imbra. The priests begins rubbing the 
bottom end of it to clear away the black dirt, and 
presently he shows all the other priests the 
Master’s Mark, same as was on Dravot’s apron, 
cut in to the stone. Not even the priests of the 
temple of Imbra knew it was there. The old 
chap falls flat on his face at Dravot’s feet and 
kisses ’em. ‘Luck again,’ says Dravot, across 
the Lodge to me, ‘they say it’s the missing Mark 
that no one could understand the why of. We’re 
more than safe now.’ Then he bangs the butt 
of his gun for a gavel and says: — ‘By virtue of 
the authority vested in me by my own right hand 
and the help of Peachey, I declare myself Grand- 
Master of all Freemasonry in Kafiristan in this 
the Mother Lodge o’ the country, and King of 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


123 

Kafiristan equally with Peachey!’ At that he 
puts on his crown and I puts on mine — I was 
doing Senior Warden — and we opens the Lodge 
in most ample form. It was a amazing miracle! 
The priests moved in Lodge through the first 
two degrees almost without telling, as if the 
memory was coming back to them. After that, 
Peachey and Dravot raised such as was worthy — 
high priests and Chiefs of far-off villages. Billy 
Fish was the first, and I can tell you we scared 
the soul out of him. It was not in any way ac- 
cording to Ritual, but it served our turn. We 
didn’t raise more than ten of the biggest men be- 
cause we didn’t want to make the Degree com- 
mon. And they was clamoring to be raised. 

“ ‘In another six months,’ says Dravot, ‘we’ll 
hold another Communication and see how you 
are working.’ Then he asks them about their 
villages, and learns that they was fighting one 
against the other and were fair sick and tired of 
it. And when they wasn’t doing that they was 
fighting with the Mohammedans. ‘You can fight 
those when they come into our country,’ says 
Dravot. ‘Tell off every tenth man of your tribes 
for a Frontier guard, and send two hundred at a 
time to this valley to be drilled. Nobody is going 
to be shot or speared any more so long as he does 
well, and I know that you won’t cheat me be- 
cause you’re white people — sons of Alexander — - 
and not like common, black Mohammedans. You 


124 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


are my people and by God,’ says he, running off 
into English at the end — Til make a damned fine 
Nation of you, or I’ll die in the making!’ 

“I can’t tell all we did for the next six months 
because Dravot did a lot I couldn’t see the hang 
of, and he learned their lingo in a way I never 
could. My work was to help the people plough, 
and now and again go out with some of the Army 
and see what the other villages were doing, and 
make ’em throw rope-bridges across the ravines 
which cut up the country horrid. Dravot was 
very kind to me, but when he walked up and 
down in the pine wood, pulling the bloody red 
beard of his with both fists, I knew he was think- 
ing plans I could not advise him about, and I just 
waited for orders. 

“But Dravot never showed me disrespect be- 
fore the people. They were afraid of me and the 
Army, but they loved Dan. He was the best of 
friends with the priests and the Chiefs; but any 
one could come across the hills with a complaint 
and Dravot would hear him out fair, and call four 
priests together and say what was to be done. 
He used to call in Billy Fish from Bashkai, and 
Pikky Kergan from Shu, and an old Chief we 
called Kafuzelum — it was like enough to his real 
name — and hold councils with ’em when there 
was any fighting to be done in small villages. 
That was his Council of War, and the four priests 
of Bashkai , Shu, Khawak, and Madora was his 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 125 

Privy Council. Between the lot of ’em they sent 
me, with forty men and twenty rifles, and sixty 
men carrying turquoises, into the Ghorband 
country to buy those hand-made Martini rifles 
that come out of the Amir’s workshops at Kabul, 
from one of the Amir’s Herati regiments that 
would have sold the very teeth out of their 
mouths for turquoises. 

“I stayed in Ghorband a month, and gave the 
Governor there the pick of my baskets for hush- 
money, and bribed the Colonel of the regiment 
some more, and, between the two and the tribes- 
people, we got more than a hundred hand-made 
Martinis, a hundred good Kohat Jezails that’ll 
throw to six hundreds yards, and forty man-loads 
of very bad ammunition for the rifles. I came 
back with what I had, and distributed ’em among 
the men that the Chiefs sent in to me to drill. 
Dravot was too busy to attend to those things, 
but the old Army that we first made helped me, 
and we turned out five hundred men that could 
drill, and two hundred that knew how to hold 
arms pretty straight. Even those cork-screwed, 
hand-made guns was a miracle to them. Dravot 
talked big about powder-shops and factories, 
walking up and own in the pine wood when the 
winter was coming on. 

“ ‘I won’t make a Nation,’ says he. ‘I’ll make 
an Empire! These men aren’t niggers; they’re 
English ! Look at their eyes — look at their 


126 the man who would be king. 


mouths. Look at the way they stand up. They 
sit on chairs in their own houses. They’re the 
Lost Tribes, or something like it, and they’ve 
grown to be English. I’ll take a census in the 
spring if the priests don’t get frightened. There 
must be a fair two million of ’em in these hills. 
The villages are full ’o little children. Two 
million people — two hundred and fifty thousand 
fighting men — and all English ! They only want 
the rifles and a little drilling. Two hundred and 
fifty thousand men, ready to cut in on Russia’s 
right flank when she tries for India! Peachey, 
man,’ he says chewing his beard in great hunks, 
‘we shall be Emperors — Emperors of the Earth! 
Rajah Brooke will be a suckling to us. “I’ll treat 
with the Viceory on equal terms. I’ll ask him to 
send me twelve picked English — twelve that I 
know of — to help us govern a bit. There’s Mack- 
ray, Sergeant pensioner at Segowli — many’s the 
good dinner he’s given me, and his wife a pair of 
trousers. There’s Donkin, the Warder of Toung- 
hoo Jail; there’s hundreds that I could lay my 
hand on if I was in India. The Viceory shall do 
it for me. I’ll send a man through in the spring 
for those men, and I’ll write for a dispensation 
from the Grand Lodge for what I’ve done as 
Grand-Master. That — and all the Sniders that’ll 
be thrown out when the native troops in India 
take up the Martini. They’ll be worn smooth, 
but they’ll do for fighting in these hills. Twelve 




* THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 127 

English, a hundred thousand Sniders run 
through the Amir’s country in driblets — I’d be 
j content with twenty thousand in one year — and 
j we’d be an Empire. When everything was ship- 
shape, Ed hand over the crown — this crown I’m 
\ wearing now — to Queen Victoria on my knees, 
and she’d say: — “Rise up, Sir Daniel Dravot.” 

I Oh, it’s big! It’s big, I tell you! But there’s 
so much to be done in every place — Bashkai, 
j! Khawak, Shu, and everywhere else.’ 

“ ‘What is it?’ I says. ‘There are no more 
men coming in to be drilled this autumn. Look 
at those fat, black clouds. They’re bringing the 
snow.’ 

“ ‘It isn’t that,” says Daniel, putting his hand 
• very hard on my shoulder; ‘and I don’t wish to 
say anything that’s against you, for no other liv- 
ing man would have followed me and made me 
what I am as you have done. You’re a first-class 
Commander-in-Chief, and the people know you; 
but — it’s a big country, and somehow you can’t 
1 help me, Peachey, in the way I want to be 
helped.’ 

“ ‘Go to your blasted priests, then!’ I said, and 
I was sorry when I made that remark, but it did 
hurt me sore to find Daniel talking so superior 
when I’d drilled all the mfen, and done all he told 
me. 

“ ‘Don’t let’s quarrel, Peachey,’ says Daniel 
without cursing. ‘You’re a King too, and the 


128 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


half of this Kingdom is yours; but can’t you see, 
Peachey, we want cleverer men than us now — ] 
three or four of ’em, that we can scatter about for 1 
our Deputies. It’s a hugeous State, and I can’t j 
always tell the right thing to do, and I haven’t 1 
time for all I want to do, and here’s the winter I 
coming on and all.’ He put half his beard into I 
his mouth, and was as red as the gold of his j 
crown. 

“ ‘I’m sorry, Daniel,’ says I. ‘I’ve done all I i 
could. I’ve drilled the men and shown the people 1 
how to stack their oats better; and I’ve brought 
in those tinware rifles from Ghorband— but I I 
know what you’re driving at. I take it Kings j 
always feel oppressed that way.’ 

“ ‘There’s another thing too,’ says Dravot, J 
walking up and down. ‘The winter’s coming and 
these people won’t be giving much trouble, -and if 
they do we can’t move about. I want a wife.’ 

“ ‘ For God’s sake leave the women alone!’ I 
says. “We’ve both got all the work we can do, | 
though I am a fool. Remember the Contrack, 
and keep clear ’o women.’ 

“ ‘The Contrack only lasted till such time as 
we was Kings; and Kings we have been these 
months past,’ says Dravot, weighing his crown 
in his hand. ‘You go get a wife too, Peachey — 
a nice, strapping plump girl that’ll keep you 
warm in the winter. They’re prettier than Eng- 
lish girls, and we can take the pick' of ’em. Boil 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


129 

’em once or twice in hot water and they’ll come 
as fair as chicken and ham.’ 

“ ‘Don’t tempt me!’ I says. ‘I will not have 
any dealings with a woman not till we are a dam’ 
side more settled than we are now. I’ve been 
doing the work o’ two men, and you’ve been 
doing the work o’ three. Let’s lie off a bit, and 
see if we can get some better tobacco from 
Afghan country and run in some good liquor; 
but no women.’ 

“ ‘Who’s talking o’ women ?’ says Dravot. “I 
said wife — a Queen to breed a King’s son for the 
King. A Queen out of the strongest tribe, that’ll 
make them your blood-brothers, and that’ll lie by 
your side and tell you all the people thinks about 
you and their own affairs. That’s what I want.’ 

“ ‘Do you remember that Bengali women I 
kept at Mogul Serai when I was platelayer?’ says 
I. ‘A fat lot o’ good she was to me. She taught 
me the lingo and one or two other things; but 
what happened? She ran away with the Station 
Master’s servant and half my month’s pay. Then 
she turned up at Dadur Junction in tow of a half- 
caste, and had the impidence to say I was her 
husband — all among the drivers in the running- 
shed!’ 

“ ‘We’ve done with that,’ says Dravot. ‘These 
women are whiter than you or me, and a Queen 
I will have for the winter months.’ 

“ ‘For the last time o’ asking, Dan, do not* I 


130 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


says. ‘It’ll only bring harm. The Bible says 
that Kings ain’t to waste their strength on 
women, ’specially when they’ve got a new raw 
Kingdom to work over.’ 

“ ‘For the last time of answering I will,’ said 
Dravot, and he went away through the pine-trees 
looking like a big red devil. The low sun hit his 
crown and beard on one side, and the two blazed 
like hot coals. 

“But getting a wife was not as easy as Dan 
thought. He put it before the Council, and there 
was no answer till Billy Fish said that he’d better 
ask the girls. Dravot damned them all round. 
‘What’s wrong with me?’ he shouts, standing by 
the idol Imbra. ‘Am I a dog or am I not enough 
of a man for your wenches? Haven’t I put the 
shadow of my hand over this country? Who 
stopped the last Afghan raid?’ It was me, really, 
but Dravot was too angry to remember. ‘Who 
bought your guns? Who repaired the bridges? 
Who’s the Grand-Master of the sign cut in the 
stone?’ and he thumped his hand on the block 
that he used to sit on in Lodge, and at Council, 
which opened like Lodge always. Billy Fish said 
nothing and no more did the others. ‘Keep your 
hair on, Dan,’ said I ; ‘and ask the girls. That’s 
how it’s done at Home, and these people are 
quite English.’ 

“ ‘The marriage of the King is a matter of 
State/ says Dan, in a white-hot rage, for he could 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


131 

feel, I hope, that he was going against his better 
mind. He walked out of the Councilroom, and 
the others sat still, looking at the ground. 

“ ‘Billy Fish,’ says I to the Chief of Bashkai, 
‘what’s the difficulty here? A straight answer to 
a true friend/ ‘You know,’ says Billy Fish. ‘How 
can daughters of men marry Gods or Devils? It’s 
not proper.’ 

“I remember something like that in the Bible; 
but if, after seeing us as long as they had, they 
still believed we were Gods, it wasn’t for me to 
undeceive them. 

“‘A God can do anything,’ says I. ‘If the 
King is fond of a girl he’ll not let her die.’ ‘She’ll 
have to,’ said Billy Fish. ‘There arfe all sorts of 
Gods and Devils in these mountains, and now 
and again a girl marries one of them and isn’t 
seen any more. Besides, you two know the Mark 
cut in the stone. Only the Gods know that. We 
thought you were men till you showed the sign 
of the Master.’ 

“I wished then that we had explained about 
the loss of the genuine secrets of a Master-Mason 
at the first go off; but I said nothing. All that 
night there was a blowing of horns in a little dark 
temple half-way down the hill, and I heard a girl 
crying fit to die. One of the priests told us that 
she was being prepared to marry the King. 

“ ‘I’ll have no nonsense of that kind/ says Dam 
T don’t want to interfere with your customs, but 


I3 2 the man who would be king. 

I’ll take my own wife.’ The girl’s a little bit 
afraid,’ says the priest. ‘She thinks she’s going 
to die, and they are a-heartening of her up down 
in the temple.’ 

“ ‘Hearten her very tender, then,’ says Dravot, 
‘or I’ll hearten you with the butt of a gun so that 
you’ll never want to be heartened again.’ He 
licked his lips, did Dan, and stayed up walking 
about more than half the night, thinking of the 
wife that he was going to get in the morning. ' I 
wasn’t any means comfortable, for I knew that 
dealings with a woman in foreign parts, though 
you was a crowned King twenty times over, 
could not but be risky. I got up very early in 
the morning while Dravot was asleep, and I saw 
the priests talking together in whispers, and the 
Chiefs talking together too, and they looked at 
me out of the corners of their eyes. 

“What is up, Fish?’ I says to the Bashkai man, 
who was wrapped up in his furs and looking 
splendid to behold. 

“ ‘ I can’t rightly say,’ says he; ‘but if you can 
induce the King to drop all this nonsense about 
marriage, you’ll be doing him and me and your- 
self a great service.’ 

“ ‘That I do believe,’ says I. ‘But sure, you 
know, Billy, as well as me, having fought against 
and for us, that the King and me are nothing 
more than two of the finest men that God Al- 
mighty ever made. Nothing more, I do assure 
you.’ 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


133 


“ ‘That may be/ says Billy Fish, ‘and yet I 
should be sorry if it was.’ He sinks his head 
upon his great fur cloak for a minute and thinks. 
‘King,’ says he, ‘be you man or God or Devil, 
I’ll stick by you to-day. I have twenty of my 
men with me, and they will follow me. We'll go 
to Bashkai until the storm blows over.’ 

“A little snow had fallen in the night, and 
everything was white except the greasy fat clouds 
that blew down and down from the north. Dra- 
vot came out with his crown on his head, swing- 
ing his arms and stamping his feet, and looking 
more pleased than Punch. 

“ ‘ For the last time, drop it, Dan,’ says I in a 
whisper. ‘Billy Fish here says that there will be 
a row.’ 

“ A row among my people!’ says Dravot. ‘Not 
much. Peachey, you’re a fool not to get a wife 
too. Where’s the girl?’ says he with a voice as 
loud as the braying of a jackass. ‘Call up all the 
Chiefs and priests, and let the Emperor see if his 
wife suits him.’ 

“There was no need to call anyone. They were 
all there leaning on their guns and spears round 
the clearing in the centre of the pine wood. A 
deputation of priests went down to the little 
temple to bring up the girl, and the horns blew 
up fit to wake the dead. Billy Fish saunters 
round and gets as close to Daniel as he could, and 
behind him stood his twenty men with match- 


134 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


locks. Not a man of them under six feet. I was 
next to Dravot, and behind me was twenty men 
of the regular Army. Up comes the girl, and a 
strapping wench she was, covered with silver and 
turquoises, but white as death, and looking back 
every minute at the priests. 

“ ‘She’ll do/ said Dan, looking her over. 
'What’s to be afraid of, lass? Come and kiss me.’ 
He puts his arm round her. She shuts her eyes, 
gives a bit of a squeak, and down goes her face in 
the side of Dan’s flaming red beard. 

“ ‘The slut’s bitten me!’ says he, clapping his 
hand to his neck, and, sure enough, his hand was 
red with blood. Billy Fish and two of his match- 
lock-men catches hold of Dan by the shoulders 
and drags him into the Bashkai lot, while the 
priests howls in their lingo, — ‘Neither God nor 
Devil, but a man!’ I was all taken aback, for a 
priest cut at me in front, and the Army behind 
began firing into the Bashkai men. 

“‘God A-mighty!’ says Dan. ‘What is the 
meaning o’ this?’ 

“‘Come back! Come away!’ says Billy Fish. 
‘Ruin and Mutiny is the matter. We’ll break for 
Bashkai if we can.’ 

“I tried to give some sort of orders to my men 
— the men o’ the regular Army — but it was no 
use, so I fired into the brown of ’em with an Eng- 
lish Martini and drilled three beggars in a line. 
The valley was full of shouting, howling crea- 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


135 


tures, and every soul was shrieking, ‘Not a God 
nor a Devil, but only a man!’ The Bashkai 
troops stuck to Billy Fish for all they were worth, 
but their matchlocks wasn’t half as good as the 
Kabul breech-loaders, and four of them dropped. 
Dan was bellowing like a bull, for he was very 
wrathy; and Billy Fish had a hard job to prevent 
him running out at the crowd. 

“ ‘We can’t stand,’ says Billy Fish. ‘Make a 
run for it down the valley! The whole place is 
against us.’ The matchlock men ran, and we 
went down the valley in spite of Dravot’s protes- 
tations. He was swearing horribly and crying 
out that he was a King. The priests rolled great 
stones on us, and the regular Army fired hard, 
and there wasn’t more than six men, not count- 
ing Dan, Billy Fish, and Me, that came down to 
the bottom of the valley alive 

“Then they stopped firing and the horns in the 
temple blew again. ‘Come away — for Gord’s sake 
come away!’ says Billy Fish. ‘They’ll send run- 
ners out to all the villages before ever we get to 
Bashkai. I can protect you there, but I can’t do 
anything now.’ 

“My own notion is that Dan began to go mad 
in his head from that hour. He stared up and 
down like a stuck pig. Then he was all for walk- 
ing back alone and killing the priests with his 
bare hands; which ne could have done. ‘An 
Emeperor am I,’ says Daniel, ‘and next year I 
shall be a Knight of the Queen.’ 


136 the man who would be king. 

“ ‘All right, Dan,’ says I ; ‘but come along now 
while there’s time.’ 

“ ‘It’s your fault,’ says he, ‘for not looking after 
your Army better. There was mutiny in the 
midst, and you didn’t know — you damned 
engine-driving, plate-laying, missionary’s-pass- 
hunting hound!’ He sat upon a rock and called 
me every foul name he could lay tongue to. I 
was too heart-sick to care, though it was all his 
foolishness that brought the smash. 

“ ‘I’m sorry, Dan,’ says I, ‘but there’s no ac- 
counting for natives. This business is our Fifty- 
Seven. Maybe we’ll make something out of it 
yet, when we’ve got to Bashkai.’ 

“ ‘Let’s get to Bashkai then,’ says Dan, ‘and, 
by God, when I come back here again I’ll sweep 
the valley so there isn’t a bug in a blanket left!’ 

“We walked all that day, and all that night 
Dan was stumping up and down on the snow, 
chewing his beard and muttering to himself. 

“ ‘There’s no hope o’ getting clear,’ said Billy 
Fish. ‘The priests will have sent runners to the 
villages to say that you are only men. Why 
didn’t you stick on as Gods till things was more 
settled? I’m a dead man,’ says Billy Fish, and 
he throws himself down on the snow and begins 
to pray to his Gods. 

“Next morning we was in a cruel bad country 
— all up and down, no level ground at all, and no 
food either. The six Bashkai men looked at 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 13 7 

Billy Fish hungry-wise as if they wanted to ask 
something, but they said never a word. At noon 
we came to the top of a flat mountain all covered 
with snow, and when we climbed up into it, be- 
hold, there was an Army in position waiting in 
the middle! 

“ The runners have been very quick,’ says 
Billy Fish, with a little bit of a laugh. They are 
waiting for us.’ 

“Three or four men began to fire from the 
enemy’s side, and a chance shot took Daniel in 
the calf of the leg. That brought him to his 
senses. He looks across the snow at the Army, 
and sees the rifles that we had brought into the 
country. 

“ 'We’re done for,’ says he. They are English- 
men, these people, — and it’s my blasted nonsense 
that has brought you to this. Get back, Billy 
Fish, and take your men away; you’ve done what 
you could, and now cut for it. Carnehan,’ says 
he, 'shake hands with me and go along with 
Billy. Maybe they won’t kill you. I’ll go and 
meet ’em alone. It’s me that did it. Me, the 
King!’ 

“ 'Go!’ says I. 'Go to Hell, Dan. I’m with 
you here. Billy Fish, you clear out, and we two 
will meet those folk.’ 

“ ‘I’m a Chief,” says Billy Fish, quite quiet. 
‘I stay with you. My men can go.’ 

“The Bashkai fellows didn’t wait for a second 


138 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 

word but ran off, and Dan and Me and Billy Fish 
walked across to where the drums were drum- 
ming and the horns were horning. It was cold 
— awful cold. I’ve got that cold in the back of 
my head now. There’s a lump of it there.” 

The punkah-coolies had gone to sleep. Two 
kerosene lamps were blazing in the office, and 
the perspiration poured down my face and 
splashed on the blotter as I leaned forward. 
Carnehan was shivering, and I feared that his 
mind might go. I wiped my face, took a fresh 
grip of the piteously mangled hands, and said: — 
“What happened after that?” 

The momentary shift of my eyes had broken 
the clear current. 

“What was you pleased to say?’ whined Carne- 
han. “They took them without any sound. Not 
a little whisper all along the snow, not though the 
King knocked down the first man that set hand 
on him — not though old Peachey fired his last 
cartridge into the brown of ’em. Not a single 
solitary sound did those swines make. They just 
closed up tight, and I tell you their furs stunk. 
There was a man called Billy Fish, a good friend 
of us all, and they cut his throat, Sir, then and 
there, like a pig; and the King kicks up the 
bloody snow and says: — ‘We’ve had a dashe rT 
fine run for our money. What’s coming next?’ 
But Peachey, Peachey Taliaferro, I tell you. Sir, 
in confidence as betwixt two friends, he lost his 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 139 

head, Sir. No, he didn’t neither. The King lost 
his head, so he did, all along o’ one of those cun- 
ning rope-bridges. Kindly let me have the 
paper-cutter, Sir. It tilted this way. They 
marched him a mile across that snow to a rope- 
bridge over a ravine with a river at the bottom. 
You may have seen such. They prodded him 
behind like an ox. ‘Damn your eyes!’ says the 
King. ‘D’you suppose I can’t die like a gentle- 
man r’ He turns to Peachey — Peachey that was 
crying like a child. I’ve brought you to this, 
Peachey,’ says he. ‘Brought you out of your 
happy life to be killed in Kafiristan, where you 
was late Commander-in-Chief of the Emperor’s 
forces Say you forgive me, Peachey.’ ‘I do,’ 
says Peachey. ‘Fully and' freely do I forgive you, 
Dan.’ ‘Shake hands, Peachey,’ says he. ‘I’m 
going now.’ Out he goes, looking neither right 
nor left, and when he was plump in the middle of 
those dizzy dancing ropes, ‘Cut, you beggars,’ he 
shouts; and they cut, and old Dan fell, turning 
round and round and round, twenty thousand 
miles, for he took half an hour to fall till he 
struck the water, and I could see his body caught 
on a rock with the gold crown close beside. 

“But do you know what they did to Peachey 
between two pine trees? They crucified him, Sir, 
as Peachey’s hand will show. They used wooden 
pegs for his hands and his feet; and he didn’t die. 
He hung there and screamed, and . they took him 


140 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


down next day, and said it was a miracle that he 
wasn’t dead. They took him down — poor old 
Peachey that hadn’t done them any harm — that 
hadn’t done them any ...” 

He rocked to and fro and wept bitterly, wiping 
his eyes with the back of his scarred hands and 
moaning like a child for some ten minutes. 

“They was cruel enough to feed him up in the 
temple, because they said he was more of a God 
that old Daniel that was a man. Then they 
turned him out on the snow, and told him to go 
home, and Peachey came home in about a year, 
begging along the roads quite safe; for Daniel 
Dravot he walked before and said: — ‘Come 
■along, Peachey. It’s a big thing we’re doing.’ 
The mountains they danced at night, and the 
mountains they tried to fall on Peachey’s head, 
but Dan he held up his hand, and Peachey came 
along bent double. He never let go of Dan’s 
hand, and he never let go of Dan’s head. They 
gave it to him as a present in the temple, to re- 
mind him not to come again, and though the 
crown was pure gold, and Peachey was starving, 
never would Peachey sell the same. You knew 
Dravot, Sir! You knew Right Worshipful 
Brother Dravot ! Look at him now !” 

He fumbled in the mass of rags round his bent 
waist; brought out a black horsehair bag em- 
broidered with silver thread; and shook there- 
from on to my table — the dried, withered head of 


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 141 

Daniel Dravot! The morning sun that had long 
been paling the lamps struck the red beard and 
blind sunken eyes; struck, too, a heavy circlet of 
gold studded with raw turquoises, that Carnehan 
placed tenderly on the battered temples. 

“You behold now,” said Carnehan, the Em- 
peror in his habit as he lived — the King of Kafir- 
istan with his crown upon his head. Poor old 
Daniel that was a monarch once!” 

I shuddered, for, in spite of defacements mani- 
fold, I recognized the head of the man of Mar- 
war Junction. Carnehan rose to go. I attempted 
to stop him. He was not fit to walk abroad. 

“Let me take away the whiskey and give me a 
little money,” he gasped. “I was a King once. 
Til go to the Deputy Commissioner and ask to 
set in the Poorhouse till I get my health. No, 
thank you, I can’t wait till you get a carriage for 
me. Pve urgent private affairs — in the south — 
at Marwar.” 

He shambled out of the office and departed in 
the direction of the Deputy Commissioner’s 
house. That day at noon I had occasion to go 
down the blinding hot Mall, and I saw a crooked 
man crawling along the white dust of the road- 
side, his hat in his hand, quavering dolorously 
after the fashion of street-singers at Home. 
There was not a soul in sight, and he was out of 
all possible earshot of the houses. And he sang 


142 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 


through his nose, turning his head from right to 
left:— 

“The Son of Man goes forth to wai, 

A golden crown to gain; 

His blooded-red banner streams afar — 

Who follows in his train?” 

I waited to hear no more, but put the poor 
wretch into my carriage and drove him off to the 
nearest missionary for eventual transfer to the 
Asylum. He repeated the hymn twice while he 
was with me whom he did not in the least recog- 
nize, and I left him singing it to the missionary. 

Two days later I inquired after his welfare of 
the Superintendent of the Asylum. 

“He was admitted suffering from sunstroke. 
He died early yesterday morning,” said the Su- 
perintendent. “Is it true that he was half an hour 
bareheaded in the sun at midday?” 

“Yes,” said I, “but do you happen to know if 
he had anything upon him by any chance when 
he died?” 

“Not to my knowledge,” said the Superin- 
tendent. 

And there the matter rests. 


MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 



MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 


“As I came through the Desert thus it was — 

As I came through the Desert.” 

The City of Dreadful Night. 

Somewhere in the Other World, where there 
„ are books and pictures and plays and shop-win- 
| dows to look at, and thousands of men who 
spend their lives in building up all four, lives a 
gentleman who writes real stories about the real 
insides of people; and his name is Mr. Walter 
Besant. But he will insist upon treating his 
ghosts — he has published half a workshopful of 
them — with levity. He makes his ghost-seers 
talk familiarly, and, in some cases, flirt outra- 
geously, with the phantoms. You may treat 
anything, from a Viceroy to a Vernacular Paper, 
with levity; but you must behave reverently to- 
wards a ghost, and particularly an Indian one. 

There are, in this land, ghosts who take the 
form of fat, cold, pobby corpses, and hide in trees 
near the roadside till a traveller passes. Then 
they drop upon his neck and remain. There are 
also terrible ghosts of women who have died in 


146 MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 

child-bed. These wander along the pathways at 
dusk, or hide in the crops near a village, and call 
seductively. But to answer their call is death in 
this world and the next. Their feet are turned 
backwards that all sober men may recognize 
them. There are ghosts of little children who 
have been thrown into wells. These haunt well- 
curbs and the fringes of jungles, and wail under 
the stars, or catch women by the wrist and beg 
to be taken up and carried. These and the 
corpse-ghosts, however, are only vernacular 
articles and do not attack Sahibs. No native 
ghost has yet been authentically reported to have 
frightened an Englishman; but many English 
ghosts have scared the life out of both white and 
black. 

Nearly every other Station owns a ghost. 
There are said to be two at Simla, not counting 
the woman who blows the bellows at Syree dak- 
bungalow on the Old Road; Mussoorie has a 
house haunted of a very lively Thing; a White 
Lady is supposed to do night-watchman round a 
house in Lahore; Dalhousie says that one of her 
houses “repeats” on autumn evenings all the in- 
cidents of a horrible horse-and-precipice acci- 
dent; Murreen has a merry ghost, and, now that 
she has been swept by cholera, will have room 
for a sorrowful one; there are Officers’ Quarters 
in Mian Mir whose doors open without reason, 
and whose furniture is guaranteed to creak, not 


MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 


147 


with the heat of June but with the weight of In* 

! visibles who come to lounge in the chairs; Pesha- 
war possesses houses that none will willingly 
rent; and there is something — not fever — wrong 
j with a big bungalow in Allahabad. The older 
Provinces simply bristle with haunted houses, 

! and march phantom armies along their main 
| thoroughfares. 

Some of the dak-bungalows on the Grand 
j Trunk Road have handy little cemeteries#in their 
compound — witnesses to the “changes and 
chances of this mortal life” in the days when men 
drove from Calcutta to the Northwest. These 
bungalows are objectionable places to put up in. 
j They are generally very old, always dirty, while 
the khansamah is as ancient as the bungalow. He 
eithers chatters senilely, or falls into the long 
trances of age. In both moods he is useless. If 
you get angry with him, he refers to some Sahib 
dead and buried these thirty years, and says that 
when he was in that Sahib’s service not a khan- 
samah in the Province could touch him. Then 
he jabbers and mows and trembles and fidgets 
among the dishes and you repent of your irrita- 
tion. 

In these dak-bungalows, ghosts are most likely 
to be found, and when found, they should be 
made a note of. Not long ago it was my busi- 
ness to live in dak-bungalows. I never inhabited 
the same house for three nights running, and 


148 my own true ghost story. 

grew to be learned in the breed. I lived in Gov- 
ernment-built ones with red brick walls and rail 
ceilings, an inventory of the furniture posted in 
every room, and an excited snake at the threshold 
to give welcome. I lived in ‘‘converted” ones — 
old houses officiating as dak-bungalows — where 
nothing was in its proper place and there wasn’t 
even a fowl for dinner. I lived in second-hand 
palaces where the wind blew through open-work 
marble tracery just as uncomfortably as through 
a broken pane. I lived in dak-bungalows where 
the last entry in the visitor’s book was fifteen 
months old, and where they slashed off the 
curry-kid’s head with a sword. It was my good- 
luck to meet all sorts of men, from sober travel- 
ling missionaries and deserters flying from 
British Regiments, to drunken loafers who threw 
whiskey bottles at all who passed; and my still 
greater good-fortune just to escape a maternity 
case. Seeing that a fair proportion of the tragedy 
of our lives out here acted itself in dak-bunga- 
lows, I wondered that I had met no ghosts. A 
ghost that would voluntarily hang about a dak- 
bungalow would be mad of course; but so many 
men have died mad in dak-bungalows that there 
must be a fair percentage of lunatic ghosts. 

In due time I found my ghost, or ghosts rather, 
for there were two of them. Up till that hour I 
had sympathized with Mr. Besant’s method of 
handling them, as shown in “The Strange Case of 


MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 




149 


Mr. Lucraft and other Stories I am now in the 
Opposition. 

We will call the bungalow Katmal dak-bunga- 
low. But that was the smallest part of the horror. 
A man with a sensitive hide has no right to sleep 
in dak-bungalows. He should marry. Katmal 
dak-bungalow was old and rotten and un- 
repaired. The floor was of worn brick, the walls 
were filthy, and the windows were nearly black 
with grime. It stood on a bypath largely used 
by native Sub-Deputy Assistants of all kinds, 
from Finance to Forests; but real Sahibs were 
rare. The khansamah, who was nearly bent 
double with old age, said so. 

When I arrived, there was a fitful, undecided 
rain on the face of the land, acompanied by a 
restless wind, and every gust made a noise like 
the rattling of dry bones in the stiff toddy-palms 
outside. The khansamah completely lost his head 
on my arrival. He had served a Sahib once. 
Did I know that Sahib? He gave me the name 
of a well-known man who has been buried for 
more than a quarter of a century, and showed me 
an ancient daguerreotype of that man in his pre- 
historic youth. I had seen a steel engraving of 
him at the head of a double volume of Memoirs a 
month before, and I felt ancient beyond telling. 

The day shut in and the khansamah went to get 
me food. He did not go through the pretence of 
calling it (( khana” — man’s victuals. He said 


MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 


150 


“ratub” and that means, among other things, 
“grub” — dog’s rations. There was no insult in 
his choice of the term. He had forgotten the 
other word, I suppose. 

While he was cutting up the dead bodies 
of animals, I settled myself down, after exploring 
the dak-bungalow. There were three rooms, be- 
side my own, which was a corner kennel, each 
giving into the other through dingy white doors 
fastened with long iron bars. The bungalow 
was a very solid one, but the partition-walls of 
the rooms were almost jerry-built in their flimsi- 
ness. Every step or bang of a trunk echoed 
from my room down the other three, and every 
footfall came back tremulously from the far walls. 
For this reason I shut the door. There were no 
lamps — only candles in long glass shades. An 
oil wick was set in the bath-room. 

For bleak, unadulterated misery that dak- 
bungalow was the worst of the many that I had 
ever set foot in. There was no fire-place, and the 
windows would not open; so a brazier of char- 
coal would have been useless. The rain and the 
wind splashed and gurgled and moaned round 
the house, and the toddy-palms rattled and 
roared. Half a dozen jackals went through the 
compound singing, and a hyena stood afar off 
and mocked them. A hyena would convince a 
Sadducee of the Resurrection of the Dead— the 
worst sort of Dead. Then came the ratub — a 




MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 


151 

curious meal, half native and half English in 
composition — with the old khansamah babbling 
behind my chair about dead and gone English 
| people, and the wind-blown candles playing 
I shadow-bo-peep with the bed and the mosquito- 
| curtains. It was just the sort of dinner and even- 
ing to make a man think of every single one of 
; his past sins, and of all the others that he in- 
tended to commit if he lived. 

Sleep, for several hundred reasons, was not 
easy. The lamp in the bath-room threw the 
most absurd shadows into the room, and the 
wind was beginning to talk nonsense. 

Just when the reasons were drowsy with 
blood-sucking I heard the regular — “Let-us- 
take-and-heave-him-over” grunt of doolie-bearers 
in the compound. First one doolie came in, then 
a second, and then a third. I heard the doolies 
dumped on the ground, and the shutter in front 
of my door shook. “That’s some one trying to 
come in,” I said. But no one spoke, and I pre- 
suaded myself that it was the gusty wind. The 
shutter of the room next to mine was attacked, 
flung back, and the inner door opened. “That’s 
some Sub-Deputy Assistant,” I said, “and he has 
brought his friends with him. Now they’ll talk 
and spit and smoke for an hour.” 

But there were no voices and no footsteps. No 
one was putting his luggage into the next room. 
The door shut, and I thanked Providence that I 


15 ^ 


MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 


was to be left in peace. But I was curious to 
know where the doolies had gone. I got out of 
bed and looked into the darkness. There was 
never a sign of a doolie. Just as I was getting 
into bed again, I heard, in the next room, the 
sound that no man in his senses can possibly 
mistake — the whir of a billiard ball down the 
length of the slates when the striker is stringing 
for break. No other sound is like it. A minute 
afterwards there was another whir, and I got 
into bed. I was not frightened — indeed I was 
not. I was very curious to know what had be- 
come of the doolies. I jumped into bed for that 
reason. 

Next minute I heard the double click of a can- 
non and my hair sat up. It is a mistake to say 
that hair stands up. The skin of the head tight- 
ens and you can feel a faint, prickly bristling all 
over the scalp. That is the hair sitting up. 

There was a whir and a click, and both sounds 
could only have been made by one thing — a bil- 
liard ball. I argued the matter out at great 
length with myself; and the more I argued the 
less probable it seemed that one bed, one table, 
and two chairs — all the furniture of the room 
next to mine — could so exactly duplicate the 
sounds of a game of billiards. After another 
cannon, a three-cushion one to judge by the 
whir, I argued no more. I had found my ghost 
and would have given worlds to have escaped 


MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 


153 


from that dak-bungalow. I listened, and with 
each listen the game grew clearer. There was 
whir on whir and click on click. Sometimes 
there was a double click and a whir and another 
click. Beyond any sort of doubt, people were 
playing billiards in the next room. And the 
I next room was not big enough to hold a billiard 
j table! 

Between the pauses of the wind I heard the 
game go forward — stroke after stroke. I tried 
to believe that I could not hear voices but that 
attempt was a failure. 

Do you know what fear is? Not ordinary fear 
of insult, injury or death, but abject, quivering 
dread of something that you cannot see — fear 
that dries the inside of the mouth and half of the 
throat — fear that makes you sweat on the palms 
of the hands, and gulp in order to keep the uvula 
at work? This is a fine Fear — a great cowardice, 
and must be felt to be appreciated. The very 
improbability of billiards in a dak-bungalow 
proved the reality of the thing. No man — drunk 
or sober — could imagine a game at billiards, or 
invent the spitting crack of a “screw-cannon.” 

A severe course of dak-bungalows has this dis- 
advantage — it breeds infinite credulity. If a man 
said to a confirmed dak-bungalow-haunter: — 
“There is a corpse in the next room, and there’s a 
mad girl in the next but one, and the woman and 
man on that camel have just eloped from a place 


154 


MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 


sixty miles away,” the hearer would not dis- 
believe because he would know that nothing is 
too wild, grotesque, or horrible to happen in a 
dak-bungalow. 

This credulity, unfortunately, extends to 
ghosts. A rational person fresh from his own 
house would have turned on his side and slept. 
I did not. So surely as I was given up as a bad 
carcass by the scores of things in the bed because 
the bulk of my blood was in my heart, so surely 
did I hear every stroke of a long game at billiards 
played in the echoing room behind the iron- 
barred door. My dominant fear was that the 
players might want a marker. It was an absurd 
fear; because creatures who could play in the 
dark would be above such superfluities. I only 
know that that was my terror; and it was real. 

After a long long while, the game stopped, and 
the door banged. I slept because I was dead 
tired. Otherwise I should have preferred to have 
kept awake. Not for everything in Asia would 
I have dropped the door-bar and peered into the 
dark of the next room. 

When the morning came, I considered that I 
had done well and wisely, and inquired for the 
means of departure. 

“By the way, khanscmtah” I said, “what were 
those three doolies doing in my compound in the 
night?” 

“There were no doolies,” said the khansamah. 


MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 


155 

I went into the next room and the daylight 
streamed through the open door. I was im- 
mensely brave. I would, at that hour, have 
played Black Pool with the owner of the big 
Black-Pool down below. 

“Has this place always been a dak-bungalow?” 
I asked. 

“No,” said the khansamah. “Ten or twenty 
years ago, I have forgotten how long, it was a 
billiard-room.” 

“A how much?” 

“A billiard-room for the Sahibs who built the 
Railway. I was khansamah then in the big house 
where all the Railway-Sahibs lived, and I used to 
come across with brandy -shrab. These three 
rooms were all one, and they held a big table on 
which the Sahibs played every evening, But the 
Sahibs are all dead now, and the Railway runs, 
you say, nearly to Kabul.” 

“Do you remember anything about the 
Sahibs?” 

“It is long ago, but I remember that one 
Sahib, a fat man and always angry, was playing 
here one night, and he said to me: — ‘Mangal 
Khan, brandy ?pani do,’ and I filled the glass, and 
he bent over the table to strike, and his head fell 
lower and lower till it hit the table, and his spec- 
tacles came off, and when we — the Sahibs and I 
myself — ran to lift him he was dead. I helped 
to carry him out. Aha, he was a strong Sahib 1 


1 56 MY own true ghost story. 

But he is dead and I, old Mangal Khan, am still 
living, by your favor.” 

That was more than enough ! I had my ghost 
— a first-hand, authenticated article. I would 
write to the Society for Psychical Research — I 
would paralyze the Empire with the news! But 
I would, first of all, put eighty miles of assessed 
crop-land between myself and that dak-bunga- 
low before nightfall. The Society might send 
their regular agent to investigate later on. 

I went into my room and prepared to pack 
after noting down the facts of the case. As I 
smoked I heard the game begin again, — with a 
miss in balk this time, for the whir was a short 
one. 

The door was open, and I could see into the 
room. Click — click \ That was a cannon. I 
entered the room without fear, for there was sun- 
light within and a fresh breeze without. The 
unseen game was going on at a tremendous rate. 
And well it might, when a restless little rat was 
running to and fro inside the dingy ceiling-cloth, 
and a piece of loose window-sash was making 
fifty breaks off the window-bolt as it shook in the 
breeze! 

Impossible to mistake the sound of billiard 
balls! Impossible to mistake the whir of a ball 
over the slate! But I was to be excused. Even 
when I shut my enlightened eyes the sound was 
marvellously like that of a fast game. 


MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 


157 

Entered angrily the faithful partner of my 
sorrows, Kadir Baksh. 

“This bungalow is very bad and low-caste! 
No wonder the Presence was disturbed and is 
speckled. Three sets of doolie-bearers came to 
the bungalow late last night when I was sleeping 
outside, and said that it was their custom to rest 
in the rooms set apart for the English people! 
What honor has the khansamah ? They tried to 
enter, but I told them to go. No wonder, if these 
Oorias have been here, that the Presence is sorely 
spotted. It is shame, and the work of a dirty 
| man !” 

Kadir Baksh did not say that he had taken 
from each gang two annas for rent in advance, 
and then, beyond my earshot, had beaten them 
with the big green umbrella whose use I could 
never before divine. But Kadir Baksh has no 
notions of morality. 

There was an interview with the khansamah , 
but as he promptly lost his head, wrath gave 
place to pity, and pity led to a long conversation, 
in the course of which he put the fat Engineer- 
Sahib’s tragic death in three separate stations — 
two of them fifty miles away. The third shift 
was to Calcutta, and there the Sahib died while 
driving a dog-cart. 

If I had encouraged him the khansamah would 
have wandered all through Bengal with his 
corpse. 


1 58 MY OWN TRUE GHOST Si ORY. 

I did not go away as soon as I intended. I 
stayed for the night, while the wind and the rat 
and the sash and the window-bolt played a ding- 
dong “hundred and fifty up.” Then the wind 
ran out and the billiards stopped, and I felt that I 
had ruined my one genuine, hall-marked ghost 
story. 

Had I only stopped at the proper time, I could 
have made anything out of it. 

That was the bitterest thought of all! 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 





HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


‘‘Where the word of a King is, there is power: And 
who may say unto him — What doest thou?” 

“Yeth! And Chimo to sleep at ve foot of ve 
bed, and ve pink pikky-book, and ve bwead — 
’cause I will be hungry in ve night — and vat’s 
all, Miss Biddums. And now give me one kiss 
and I’ll go to sleep. — So! Kite quick. Ow! Ve 
pink pikky-book has slid under ve pillow and ve 
bwead is cwumbling! Miss Biddums! Miss 
Bid&umsl I’m so uncomfy! Come and tuck me 
up, Miss Biddums.” 

His Majesty the King was going to bed; and 
poor, patient Miss Biddums, who had advertised 
herself humbly as a “young person, European, 
accustomed to the care of little children,” was 
forced to wait upon his royal caprices. The go- 
ing to bed was always a lengthy process, because 
His Majesty had a convenient knack of forget- 
ting which of his many friends, from the mother's 
son to the Commissioner’s daughter, he had 
prayed for, and, lest the Deity should take of- 
fence, was used to toil through his little prayers, 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


162 

in all reverence, five times in one evening. His 
Majesty the King believed in the efficacy of 
prayer as devoutly as he believed in Chimo the 
patient spaniel, orMissBiddums, who could reach 
him down his gun — “with cursuffun caps — reel 
ones” — from the upper shelves of the big nursery 
cupboard. 

At the door of the nursery his authority stop- 
ped. Beyond lay the empire of his father and 
mother — two very terrible people who had no 
time to waste upon His Majesty the King. His 
voice was lowered when he passed the frontier of 
his own dominions, his actions were fettered, and 
his soul was filled with awe because of the grim 
man who lived among a wilderness of pigeon- 
holes and the most fascinating pieces of red tape, 
and the wonderful woman who was always get- 
ting into or stepping out of the big carriage. 

To the one belonged the mysteries of the 
“daftar- room;” to the other the great, reflected 
wilderness of the “Memsahib’s room” where the 
shiny, scented dresses hung on pegs, miles and 
miles up in the air, and the just-seen plateau of 
the toilet-table revealed an acreage of speckly 
combs, broidered “hanafitch-bags,” and “white- 
headed” brushes. 

There was no room for His Majesty the King 
either in official reserve or mundane gorgeous- 
ness. He had discovered that, ages and ages ago 
— before even Chimo came to the house, or Miss 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


163 

Biddums had ceased grizzling over a packet of 
greasy letters which appeared to be her chief 
treasure on earth. His Majesty the King, there- 
fore, wisely confined himself to his own terri- 
tories, where only Miss Biddums, and she feebly, 
disputed his sway. 

From Miss Biddums he had picked up his sim- 
ple theology and welded it to the legends of gods 
and devils that he had learned in the servants' 
quarters. 

To Miss Biddums he confided with equal trust 
his tattered garments and his more serious griefs. 

I She would make everything whole. She knew 
exactly how the Earth had been born, and had 
reassured the trembling soul of His Majesty the 
King that terrible time in July when it rained 
continuously for seven days and seven nights, 
and — there was no ark ready and all the ravens 
had flown away! She was the most powerful 
person with whom he was brought into contact — 
always excepting the two remote and silent peo- 
ple beyond the nursery door. 

How was His Majesty the King to know that, 
six years ago, in the summer of his birth, Mrs. 
Austell, turning over her husband’s papers, had 
come upon the intemperate letter of a foolish 
woman who had been carried away by the silent 
man’s strength and personal beauty? How could 
he tell what evil the overlooked slip of note- 
paper had wrought in the mind of a desperately 


164 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


jealous wife? How could he, despite his wisdom, 
guess that his mother had chosen to make of it 
excuse for a bar and a division between herself 
and her husband, that strengthened and grew 
harder to break with each year; that she, having 
unearthed this skeleton in the cupboard, had 
trained it into a household God which should be 
about their path and about their bed, and poison 
all their ways? 

These things were beyond the province of His 
Majesty the King. He only knew that his father 
was daily absorbed in some mysterious work for a 
thing called the Sirkar and that his mother was 
the victim alternately of the Nautch and the Bur- 
rakhana. To these entertainments she was 
escorted by a Captain-Man for whom His 
Majesty the King had no regard. 

“He doesn't laugh,” he argued with Miss Bid- 
dums, who would fain have taught him charity. 
“He only makes faces wiv his mouf, and when he 
wants to o-muse me I am not o-mused.” And 
His Majesty the King shook his head as one who 
knew the deceitfulness of this world. 

Morning and evening it was his duty to salute 
his father and mother^ — the former with a grave 
shake of the hand, and the latter with an equally 
grave kiss. Once, indeed, he had put his arms 
round his mother’s neck, in the fashion he used 
towards Miss Biddums. The openwork of his 
sleeve-edge caught in an earring, and the last 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


165 

stage of His Majesty’s little overture was a sup- 
pressed scream and summary dismissal to the 
nursery. 

“It is w’ong,” thought His Majesty the King, 
“to hug Memsahibs wiv fings in veir ears. I 
will amember.” He never repeated the experi- 
ment. 

Miss Biddums, it must be confessed, spoilt him 
as much as his nature admitted, in some sort of 
recompense for what she called “the hard ways 
of his Papa and Mamma,” She, like her charge, 
knew nothing of the trouble between man and 
wife — the savage contempt for a woman’s stupid- 
ity on the one side, or the dull, rankling anger on 
the other. Miss Biddums had looked after many 
little children in her time, and served in many 
establishments. Being a discreet woman, she 
observed little and said less, and, when her pupils 
went over the sea to the Great Unknown which 
she, with touching confidence in her hearers, 
called “Home,” packed up her slender belong- 
ings and sought for employment afresh, lavish- 
ing all her love on each successive batch of in- 
grates. Only His Majesty the King had repaid 
her affestion with interest; and in his uncompre- 
hended ears she had told the tale of nearly all 
her hopes, her aspirations, the hopes that were 
dead, and the dazzling glories of her ancestral 
home in “Ca/cutta, close to Wellington Square.” 

Everything above the average was in the eyes 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


1 66 

of his Majesty the King “Calcutta good.” When 
Miss Biddums had crossed his royal will, he re- 
versed the epithet to vex that estimable lady, and 
all things evil were, until the tears of repentance 
swept away spite, “Calcutta bad.” 

Now and again Miss Biddums begged for him 
the rare pleasure of a day in the society of the 
Commissioner’s child — the wilful four-year-old 
Patsie, who, to the intense amazement of His 
Majesty the King, was idolized by her parents. 
On thinking the question out at length, by roads 
unknown to those who have left childhood be- 
hind, he came to the conclusion that Patsie was 
petted because she wore a big blue sash and yel- 
low hair. 

• This precious discovery he kept to himself. 
The yellow hair was absolutely beyond his power, 
his own tousled wig being potato-brown; but 
something might be done towards the blue sash. 
He tied a large knot in his mosquito-curtains in 
order to remember to consult Patsie on their 
next meeting. She was the only child he had 
ever spoken to, and almost the only one that he 
had ever seen. The little memory and the very 
large and ragged knot held good. 

“Patsie, lend me your blue wiband,” said His 
Majesty the King. 

“You’ll bewy it,” said Patsie doubtfully, mind- 
ful of certain fearful atrocities committed on her 
doll. 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 167 

“No, I won’t — twoofanhonor. It’s for me to 
wear.” 

“Pooh!” said Patsie. “Boys don’t wear 
sa-ashes. Zey’s only for dirls.” 

“I didn’t know.” The face of his Majesty the 
King fell. 

“Who wants ribands? Are you playing horses, 
chickabiddies?” said the Commissioner’s wife, 
stepping into the veranda. 

“Toby wanted my sash,” explained Patsie. 

“I don’t know,” said His Majesty the King 
hastily, feeling that with one of those terrible 
“grown-ups” his poor little secret would be 
shamelessly wrenched from him, and perhaps — 
most burning desecration of all — laughed at. 

“I’ll give you a cracker-cap,” said the Com- 
missioner’s wife. “Come along with me, Toby, 
and we’ll choose it.” 

The cracker-cap was a stiff, three-pointed ver- 
milion-and-tinsel splendor. His Majesty the 
King fitted it on his royal brow. The Commis- 
sioner’s wife had a face that children instinctively 
trusted, and her action, as she adjusted the top- 
pling middle spike, was tender. 

“Will it do as well?” stammered His Majesty 
the King. 

“As what, little one?” 

“As ve wiban?” 

“Oh, quite. Go and look at yourself in the 
glass.” 


i68 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


The words were spoken in all sincerity and to 
help forward any absurd “dressing-up” amuse- 
ment that the children might take into their 
minds. But the young savage has a keen sense 
of the ludicrous. His Majesty the King swung 
the great cheval-glass down, and saw his head 
crowned with the staring horror of a fool’s cap — 
a thing which his father would rend to pieces if 
it ever came into his office. He plucked it off, 
and burst into tears. 

“Toby,” said the Commissioner’s wife gravely, 
“you shouldn’t give way to temper. I am very 
sorry to see it. It’s wrong.” 

His Majesty the King sobbed inconsolably, 
and the heart of Patsie’s mother was touched. 
She drew the child on to her knee. Clearly it was 
not temper alone. 

“What is it, Toby? Won’t you tell me? Aren’t 
you well?” 

The torrent of sobs and speech met, and fought 
for a time, with chokings and gulpings and 
gasps. Then, in a sudden rush, His Majesty the 
King was delivered of a few inarticulate sounds, 
followed by the words : — “Go a — way you — dirty 
little debbil!” 

“Toby! What do you mean?” 

“It’s what he’d say. I know it is\ He said vat 
when vere was only a little, little eggy mess, on 
my t-t-unic ; and he’d say it again, and laugh, if I 
went in wif vat on my head.” 

“Who would say that?” 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


169 

“M-m-my Papa! And I fought if I had ve 
blue wiban, he’d let me play in ve waste-paper 
basket under ve table.” 

(i What blue riband, childie?” 

“Ve same vat Patsie had — ve big blue wiban 
w-w-wound my t-t-tummy !” 

“What is it, Toby? There’s something on 
your mind. Tell me all about it, and perhaps I 
can help.” 

“Isn’t anyfing,” sniffed His Majesty, mindful 
of his manhood, and raising his head from the 
motherly bosom upon which it was resting. “I 
only fought vat you — you petted Patsie ’cause 
she had ve blue wiban, and — and if I’d had ve 
blue wiban too, m-may Papa w-would pet me.” 

The secret was out, and His Majesty the King 
sobbed bitterly in spite of the arms round him, 
and the murmur of comfort on his heated little 
forehead. 

Enter Patsie tumultuously, embarrassed by 
several lengths of the Commissioner’s pet mah- 
scer- rod. “Turn along, Toby ! Zere’s a chu-chu 
lizard in ze chick, and I’ve told Chimo to watch 
him till we turn. If we poke him wiz zis his tail 
will go wiggle-wiggle and fall off. Turn along! 
I can’t weach.” 

“I’m cornin’,” said His Majesty the King, 
climbing down from the Commissioner’s wife’s 
knee after a hasty kiss. 

Two minutes later, the chu-chu lizard’s tail was 


170 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


wiggling on the matting of the veranda, and the 
children were gravely poking it with splinters 
from the chick, to urge its exhausted vitality into 
“just one wiggle more, ’cause it doesn’t hurt 
chu-chu” 

The Commissioner’s wife stood in the doorway 
and watched: — “Poor little mite! A blue sash 
and my own precious Patsie ! I wonder 
if the best of us, or we who love them best, ever 
understand what goes on in their topsy-turvy 
little heads.” 

A big tear splashed on the Commissioner’s 
wife’s wedding-ring, and she went indoors to de- 
vise a tea for the benefit of His Majesty the King. 

“Their souls aren’t in their tummies at that age 
in this climate,” said the Commissioner’s wife, 
“but they are not far off. I wonder if I could 
make Mrs. Austell understand. Poor little fel- 
low!” 

With simple craft, the Commissioner’s wife 
called on Mrs. Austell and spoke long and lov- 
ingly about children; inquiring specially for His 
Majesty the King. 

“He’s with his governess,” said Mrs. Austell, 
and the tone intimated that she was not inter- 
ested. 

The Commissioner’s wife, unskilled in the art 
of war, continued her questionings. “I don’t 
know,” said Mrs. Austell. “These things are left 
to Miss Biddums, and, of course, she does not ill- 
treat the child.” 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


1 71 

The Commissioner’s wife left hastily. The 
last sentence jarred upon her nerves. “Doesn’t 
ill-treat the child! And if that were all! I 
wonder what Tom would say if I only ‘didn’t ill- 
treat’ Patsie!” 

Thenceforward, His Majesty the King was an 
honored guest at the Commissioner’s house, and 
the chosen friend of Patsie, with whom he blun- 
dered into as many scrapes as the compound and 
the servants’ quarters afforded. Patsie’s Mam- 
ma was always ready to give counsel, help, and 
sympathy, and, if need were and callers few, to 
enter into their games with an abandon that 
would have shocked the sleek-haired subalterns 
who squirmed painfully in their chairs when they 
came to call on her whom they profanely nick- 
named “Mother Bunch.” 

Yet, in spite of Patsie and Patsie’s Mamma, 
and the love that these two lavished upon him, 
His Majesty the King fell grievously from grace, 
and committed no less a sin than that of theft — 
unknown, it is true, but burdensome. 

There came a man to the door one day, when 
His Majesty was playing in the hall and the 
bearer had gone to dinner, with a packet for his 
Majesty’s Mamma. And he put it upon the hall- 
table, said that there was no answer, and de- 
parted. 

Presently, the pattern of the dado ceased to in- 
terest His Majesty, while the packet, a white, 


172 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


neatly wrapped one of fascinating shape, inter- 
ested him very much indeed. His Mamma was 
out, so was Miss Biddums, and there was pink 
string round the packet. He greatly desired 
pink string. It would help him in many of his 
little businesses — the haulage across the floor of 
his small cane-chair, the torturing of Chimo, who 
could never understand harness — and so forth. 
If he took the string it would be his own, and no- 
body would be any the wiser. He certainly could 
not pluck up sufficient courage to ask Mamma 
for it. Wherefore, mounting upon a chair, he 
carefully untied the string and, behold, the stiff 
white paper spread out in four directions, and re- 
vealed a beautiful little leather box with gold 
lines upon it! He tried to replace the string, but 
that was a failure. So he opened the box to get 
full satisfaction for his iniquity, and saw a most 
beautiful Star that shone and winked, and was al- 
together lovely and desirable. 

“Vat,” said his Majesty meditatively, “is a 
sparkle cwown, like what I will wear when I go 
to heaven. I will wear it on my head — Miss 
Biddums says so. I would like to wear it now. 
I would like to play wiv it. I will take it away 
and play wiv it, very careful, until Mamma asks 
for it. I fink it was bought for me to play wiv — 
same as my cart.” 

His Majesty the King was arguing against his 
conscience, and he knew it, for he thought im- 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


173 


mediately after: “Never mind. I will keep it to 
play wiv until Mamma says where is it, and then 
I will say: — ‘I tookt it and I am sorry/ I will 
not hurt it because it is a ’parkle cwown. But 
Miss Biddums will tell me to put it back. I will 
not show it to Miss Biddums/’ 

If Mamma had come in at that moment all 
would have gone well. She did not, and His 
Majesty the King stuffed paper, case, and jewel 
into the breast of his blouse and marched to the 
nursery. 

“When Mamma asks I will tell,” was the salve 
that he laid upon his conscience. But Mamma 
never asked, and for three whole days His 
Majesty the King gloated over his treasure. It 
was of no earthly use to him, but it was splendid, 
and, for aught he knew, something dropped from 
the heavens themselves. Still Mamma made no 
inquiries, and it seemed to him, in his furtive 
peeps, as though the shiny stones grew dim. 
What was the use of a ’parkle cwown if it made 
a little boy feel all bad in his inside? He had the 
pink string as well as the other treasure, but 
greatly he wished that he had not gone beyond 
the string. It was his first experience of iniquity, 
and it pained him after the flush of possession 
and secret delight in the “ ’parkle cwown” had 
died away. 

Each day that he delayed rendered confession 
to the people beyond the nursery door more im- 


174 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


possible. Now and again he determined to put 
himself in the path of the beautifully attired lady 
as she was going out, and explain that he and no 
one else was the possessor of a “ ’parkle crrown,” 
most beautiful and quite uninquired for. But she 
passed hurriedly to her carriage, and the oppor- 
tunity was gone before His Majesty the King 
could draw the deep breath which clinches noble 
resolve. The dread secret cut him off from Miss 
Biddums, Patsie, and the Commissioner's wife, 
and — doubly hard fate — when he brooded over it 
Patsie said, and told her mother, that he was 
cross. 

The days were very long to His Majesty the 
King, and the nights longer still. Miss Bid- 
dums had informed him, more than once, what 
was the ultimate destiny of “fieves,” and when he 
passed the interminable mud flanks of the Central 
Jail, he shook in his little strapped shoes. 

But release came after an afternoon spent in 
playing boats by the edge of the tank at the bot- 
tom of the garden. His Majesty the King went 
to tea, and, for the first time in his memory, the 
meal revolted him. His nose was very cold, and 
his cheeks were burning hot. There was a weight 
about his feet, and he pressed his head several 
times to make sure that it was not swelling as he 
sat. 

“I feel vevy funny,” said His Majesty the 
King, rubbing his nose. “Vere’s a buzz-buzz in 
my head.” 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


175 

He went to bed quietly. Miss Biddums was 
out and the bearer undressed him. 

The sin of the “ ’parkle cwown” was forgotten 
in the acuteness of the discomfort to which he 
. roused after a leaden sleep of some hours. He 
was thirsty, and the bearer had forgotten to leave 
I the drinking water. “Miss Biddums! Miss Bid- 
dums! Fs so kirsty!” 

No answer. Miss Biddums had leave to at- 
j tend the wedding of a Calcutta schoolmate. His 
Majesty the King had forgotten that. 

“I want a dwink of water!” he cried, but his 
voice was dried up in his throat. “I want a 
dwink! Vere is ve glass?” 

He sat up in bed and looked round. There 
was a murmur of voices from the other side of the 
nursery door. It was better to face the terrible 
1 unknown than to choke in the dark. He slipped 
out of bed, but his feet were strangely wilful, and 
he reeled once or twice. Then he pushed the 
door open and staggered — a puffed and purple- 
faced little figure — into the briliant light of the 
dining-room full of pretty ladies 

‘Tm very hot! I’m vevy uncomfitivle,” 
moaned His Majesty the King, clinging to the 
portiere, “and vere’s no water in ve glass, and 
I’m so kirsty. Give me a dwink of water.” 

An apparition in black and whke — His Majesty 
the King could hardly see distinctly — lifted him 
up to the level of the table, and felt his wrists and 


176 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


forehead. The water came, and he drank deeply, 
his teeth chattering against the edge of the 
tumbler. Then every one seemd to go away — 
every one except the huge man in black and 
white, who carried him back to his bed; the 
mother and father following, And the sin of the 
“ ’parkle cwown” rushed back and took posses- 
ion of the terrified soul. 

“I’m a fief!” he gasped. “I want to tell Miss 
Biddums vat I’m a fief. Vere is Miss Biddums?” 

Miss Biddums had come and was bending over 
him. “I’m a fief,” he whispered. “A fief — like 
ve men in the pwison. But I’ll tell now. I tookt 
I tookt ve ’parkle cwown when the 
man that came left it in ve hall. I bwoke ve 
paper and ve little bwown box, and it looked 
shiny, and I tookt it to play wif, and I was 
afwaid.. It’s in ve dooly-box at ve bottom. No 
one never asked for it, but I was afwaid. Oh, go 
an’ get ve dooly-box!” 

Miss Biddums obediently stooped to the low- 
est shelf of the almirah and unearthed the big 
paper box in which His Majesty the King kept 
his dearest possessions. Under the tin soldiers, 
and a layer of mud pellets for a pellet-bow, 
winked and blazed a diamond star, wrapped 
roughly in a half-sheet of note-paper whereon 
were a few words. 

Somebody was crying at the head of the bed, 
and a man’s hand touched the forehead of His 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


177 

Majesty the King, who grasped the packet and 
spread it on the bed. 

“Vat is ve ’parkle cwown,” he said and wept 
bitterly; for now that he had made restitution he 
would fain have kept the shining splendor with 
him. 

“It concerns you too,” said a voice at the head 
of the bed. “Read the note. This is not the 
time to keep back anything.” 

The note was curt, very much to the point, and 
signed by a single initial. “If you wear this to- 
morrow night I shall know what to expect” The 
date was three weeks old. 

A whisper followed, and the deeper voice re- 
turned: — “And you drifted as far apart as thatl 
I think it makes us quits now, doesn’t it? Oh, 
can’t we drop this folly once and for all? Is it 
worth it, darling?” 

“Kiss me too,” said His Majesty the King, 
dreamily. “You isn’t vevy angwy, is you?” 

The fever burned itself out, and His Majesty 
the King slept. 

When he waked, it was in a new world — 
peopled by his father and mother as well as Miss 
Biddums; and there was much love in that world 
and no morsel of fear, and more petting than was 
good for several little boys. His Majesty the 
King was too young to moralize on the uncer- 
tainty of things human, or he would have been 
impressed with the singular advantages of crime: 


HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 


178 

— ay, black sin. Behold, he had stolen the 
“ ’parkle cwown,” and his reward was Love, and 
the right to play in the waste-paper basket under 
the table ‘‘for always/’ 

He trotted over to spend an afternoon with 
Patsie, and the Commissioner’s wife would have 
kissed him. “No, not vere,” said His Majesty 
the King, with superb insolence, fencing one 
corner of his mouth with his hand. “Vat’s my 
Mamma’s place — vere she kisses me.” 

“Oh!” said the Commissioner’s wife briefly. 
Then to herself: — “Well, I suppose I ought to be 
glad for his sake. Children are selfish little grubs 
and — I’ve got my Patsie.” 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE 







WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 


“An officer and a gentleman.” 

His full name was Percival William Williams,, 
but he picked up the other name in a nursery- 
book, and that was the end of the christened 
titles. His mother’s ayah called him Wi\\ie-Baba, 
but as he never paid the slightest attention 
anything that the ayah said, her wisdom did not 
help matters. 

His father was the Colonel of the 195th, and 
as soon as Wee Willie Winkie was old enough 
to understand what Military Discipline meant. 
Colonel Williams put him under it. There was 
no other way of managing the child. When he 
was good for a week, he drew good-conduct pay; 
and when he was bad, he was deprived of his 
good-conduct stripe. Generally he was bad, for 
India offers so many chances to little six-year- 
olds of going wrong. 

Children resent familiarity from strangers, and 
Wee Willie Winkie was a very particular child. 
Once he accepted an acquaintance, he was 
graciously pleased to thaw. He accepted Bran- 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 


182 

dis, a subaltern of the 195th, on sight. Brandis 
was having tea at the Colonels, and Wee Willie 
Winkie entered strong in the possession of a 
good-conduct badge won for not chasing the 
hens round the compound. He regarded Bran- 
dis with gravity for at least ten minutes, and then 
delivered himself of his opinion. 

“I like you,” said he slowly, getting off his 
chair and coming over to Brandis. “I like you. 
I shall call you Coppy, because of your hair. Do 
you mind being called Coppy? It is because of 
ve hair, you know.” 

Here was one of the most embarrassing of 
Wee Willie Winkie’s peculiarities. He would 
look at a stranger for some time, and then, with- 
out warning or explanation, would give him a 
name. And the name stuck. No regimental 
penalties could break Wee Willie Winkie of this 
habit. He lost his good-conduct badge for chris- 
tening the Commissioner’s wife “Pobs;” but 
nothing that the Colonel could do made the Sta- 
tion forego the nickname, and Mrs. Collen re- 
mained Mrs. “Pobs” till the end of her stay. So 
Brandis was christened “Coppy,” and rose, there- 
fore, in the estimation of the regiment. 

If Wee Willie Winkie took an interest in any 
one, the fortunate man was envied alike by the 
mess and the rank and file. And in their envy 
lay no suspicion of self-interest. “The Colonel’s 
son” was idolized on his own merits entirely. 


WEE WILLIE WINK1E. 


183 

Yet Wee Willie Winkie was not lovely. His 
| face was permanently freckled, as his legs were 
permanently scratched, and in spite of his 
mother’s almost tearful remonstrances he had 
insisted upon having his long yellow locks cut 
short in the military fashion. “I want my hair 
| like Sergeant Tummil’s,” said Wee Willie Win- 
j kie, and, his father abetting, the sacrifice was 
I accomplished. 

Three weeks after the bestowal of his youthful 
affections on Lieutenant Brandis — henceforward 
| to be called “Coppy” for the sake of brevity — 
I Wee Willie Winkle was destined to behold 
| strange things and far beyond his comprehen- 
sion. 

Coppy returning his liking with interest. 
Coppy had let him wear for five rapturous min- 
utes his own big sword — just as tall as Wee 
Willie Winkie. Coppy had promised him a 
terrier puppy; and Coppy had permitted him to 
j witness the miraculous operation of shaving. 
Nay, more — Coppy had said that even he, Wee 
Willie Winkie, would rise in time to the owner- 
ship of a box of shiny knives, a silver soap-box 
and a silver-handled “sputter-bush,” as Wee 
Willie Winkie called it. Decidedly, there was no 
one except his father, who could give or take 
away good-conduct badges at pleasure, half so 
wise, strong, and valiant as Coppy with the 
Afghan and Egyptian medals on his breast. 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 


184 

Why, then, should Coppy be guilty of the un- 
manly weakness of kissing — vehemently kissing 
— a “big girl,” Mis Allardyce to wit? In the 
course of a morning ride, Wee Willie Winkie 
had seen Coppy so doing, and, like the gentle- 
man he was, had promptly wheeled round and 
cantered back to his groom, lest the groom 
should also see. 

Under ordinary circumstances he would have 
spoken to his father, but he felt instinctively that 
this was a matter on which Coppy ought first to 
be consulted. 

“Coppy,” shouted Wee Willie Winkie, reining 
up outside that subaltern’s bungalow early one 
morning — -“I want to see you, Coppy!” 

“Come in, young ’un,” returned Coppy, who 
was at early breakfast in the midst of his dogs. 
“What mischief have you been getting into 
now?” 

Wee WiHie Winkie had done nothing notori- 
ously bad for three days, and so stood on a pin- 
nacle of virtue. 

“I’ve been doing nothing bad,” said he, curl- 
ing himself into a long chair with a studious af- 
fectation of the Colonel’s languor after a hot 
parade. He buried his freckled nose in a tea- 
cup and, with eyes staring roundly over the rim, 
asked: — “I say, Coppy, is it pwoper to kiss big 
girls?” 

“By Jove! You’re beginning early. Who do 
you want to kiss?” 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 




185 


“No one. My muvver’s always kissing me if 
I don’t stop her. If it isn’t pwoper, how was you 
kissing Major Allardyce’s big girl last morning, 
bv ve canal?” 

Coppy’s brow wrinkled. He and Miss Allar- 
dyce had with great craft managed to keep their 
; engagement secret for a fortnight. There were 
urgent and imperative reasons why Major Allar- 
dyce should not know how matters stood for at 
least another month, and this small marplot had 
discovered a great deal too much. 

“I saw you,” said Wee Willie Winkie calmly. 
“But ve groom didn’t see. I said, ‘ Hut jao.’ ” 

“Oh, you had that much sense, you young 
Rip,” groaned poor Coppy, half amused and half 
angry. “And how many people may you have 
told about it?” 

“Only me myself. You didn’t tell when I 
twied to wide ve buffalo ven my pony was lame; 
and I fought you wouldn’t like.” 

“Winkie,” said Coppy enthusiastically, sha- 
king the small hand, “you’re the best of good fel- 
lows. Look here, you can’t understand all these 
things. One of these days — hang it, how can I 
make you see it! — I’m going to marry Miss 
Allardyce, and then she’ll be Mrs. Coppy, as you 
say. If your young mind is so scandalized at 
the idea of kissing big girls, go and tell your 
father.” 

“What will happen?” said Wee Willie Winkie, 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 


1 86 

who firmly believed that his father was omnipo- 
tent. 

“I shall get into trouble,” said Coppy, playing 
his trump card with an appealing look at the 
holder of the ace. 

“Ven I won’t,” said Wee Willie Winkie briefly. 
“But my faver says it’s un-man-ly to be always 
kissing, and I didn’t fink you’d do vat, Coppy.” 

“I’m not always kissing, old chap. It’s only 
now and then, and when you’re bigger you’ll do 
it too. Your father meant it’s not good for little 
boys.” 

“Ah!” said Wee Willie Winkie, now fully en- 
lightened. “It’s like ve sputter-brush?” 

“Exactly,” said Coppy gravely. 

“But I don’t fink I’ll ever want to kiss big 
girls, nor no one, ’cept my muvver. And I must 
vat, you know.” 

There was a long pause, broken by Wee Willie 
Winkie. 

“Are you fond of vis big girl, Coppy?” 

“Awfully!” said Coppy. 

“Fonder van you are of Bell or ve Butcha — or 
me?” 

“It’s in a different way,” said Coppy. “You 
see, one of these days Miss Allardyce will belong 
to me, but you’ll grow up and command the 
Regiment and — all sorts of things. It’s quite 
different, you see.” 

“Very well,” said Wee Willie Winkie, rising. 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 187 

“If you’re fond of ve big girl, I won’t tell any one. 
I must go now.” « 

Coppy rose and escorted his small guest to the 
door, adding: — You’re the best of little fellows, 
Winkie. I tell you what. In thirty days from 
now you can tell if you like — tell any one you 
like.” 

Thus the secret of the Brandis-Allardyce en- 
gagement was dependent on a little child’s word. 
Coppy, who knew Wee Willie Winkie’s idea of 
truth, was at ease, for he felt that he would not 
break promises. Wee Willie Winkie betrayed a 
special and unusual interest in Miss Allardyce, 
and, slowly revolving round that embarrassed 
young lady, was used to regard her gravely with 
unwinking eye. He was trying to discover why 
Coppy should have kised her. She was not half 
so nice as his own mother. On the other hand, 
she was Coppy’s property, and would in time 
belong to him. Therefore it behooved him to 
treat her with as much respect as Coppy’s big 
sword or pistol. 

The idea that he had shared a great secret in 
common with Coppy kept Wee Willie Winkie 
unusually virtuous for three weeks. Then the 
Old Adam broke out, and he made what he 
called a “camp fire” at the bottom of the garden. 
How could he have foreseen that the flying 
sparks would have lighted the Colonel’s little 
hayrick and consumed a week’s store for the 


t88 


WEE WILLIE W1NKIE . 


horses? Sudden and swift was the punishment — 
deprivation of the good-conduct badge and, most 
sorrowful of all, two days confinement to bar- 
racks — the house and veranda — coupled with the 
withdrawal of the light of his father’s counte- 
nance. 

He took the sentence like the man he strove to 
be, drew himself up with a quivering under-lip, 
saluted, and, once clear of the room, ran to weep 
bitterly in his nursery — called by him “my quar- 
ters.” Coppy came in the afternoon and at- 
tempted to console the culprit. 

“I’m under awwest,” said Wee Willie Winkie 
mournfully, “and I didn’t ought to speak to you.”' 

Very early the next morning he climbed on to 
the roof of the house — that was not forbidden — 
and beheld Miss Allardyce going for a ride. 

“Where are you going?” cried Wee Willie 
Winkie. 

“Across the river,” she answered, and trotted 
forward. 

Now the cantonment in which the 195th lay 
was bounded on the north by a river — dry in the 
winter. From his earliest years, Wee Willie 
Winkie had ben forbidden to go across the river, 
and had noted that even Coppy — the almost al- 
mighty Coppy — had never set foot beyond it. 
Wee Willie Winkie had once been read to, out of 
a big blue book, the history of the Princess and 
the Goblins — a most wonderful tale of a land 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 


189 

where the Goblins were always warring with the 
children of men until they were defeated by one 
Curdie. Ever since that date it seemed to him 
that the bare black and purple hills across the 
river were inhabited by Goblins, and, in truth, 
every one had said that there lived the Bad Men. 
Even in his own house the lower halves of the 
windows were covered with green papr on ac- 
count of the Bad Men who might, if allowed 
clear view, fire into peaceful drawing-rooms and 
! comfortable bedrooms. Certainly, beyond the 
river, which was the end of all the Earth, lived 
the Bad Men. And here was Major Allardyce’s 
big girl, Coppy’s property, preparing to venture 
into their borders! What would Coppy say if 
anything happened to her? If the Goblins ran off 
with her as they did with Curdie’s Princess? She 
must at all hazards be turned back. 

The. house was still. Wee Willie Winkie re- 
flected for a moment on the very terrible wrath 
of his father; and then — broke his arrest! It was 
a crime unspeakable. The low sun threw his 
shadow, very large and very black, on the trim 
garden-paths, as he went down to the stables and 
ordered his pony. It seemed to him in the hush 
of the dawn that all the big world had been 
bidden to stand still and look at Wee Willie 
Winkie guilty of mutiny. The drowsy groom 
handed him his mount, and, since the one great 
sin made all others significant, Wee Willie 


1 90 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 


Winkie said that he was going to ride over to 
Coppy Sahib, and went out at a foot-pace, step- 
ping on the soft mould of the flower-borders. 

The devastating track of the pony’s feet was 
the last misdeed that cut him off fiom all sym- 
pathy of Humanity. He turned into the road, 
leaned forward, and rode as fast as the pony 
could put his foot to the ground in the direction 
of the river. 

But the liveliest of twelve-two ponies can do 
little against the long canter of a Waler. Miss 
Allardyce was far ahead, had passed through the 
crops, beyond the Police-post, when all the 
guards were asleep, and her mount was scatter- 
ing the pebbles of the river bed as Wee Willie 
Winkle left the cantonment and British India be- 
hind him. Bowed forward and still flogging, 
Wee Willie Winkie shot into Afghan territory, 
and could just see Miss Allardyce a black speck 
flickering across the stony plain. The reason of 
her wandering was simple enough. Coppy, in a 
tone of too-hastily-assumed authority, had told 
her over night that she must not ride out by the 
river. And she had gone to prove her own spirit 
and teach Coppy a lesson. 

Almost at the foot of the inhospitable hills, 
Wee Willie Winkie saw the Waler blunder and 
come down heavily. Miss Allardyce struggled 
clear, but her ankle had been severely twisted, 
and she could not stand. Having thus demon- 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 


191 

| strated her spirit, she wept copiously, and was 
surprised by the apparition of a white, wide-eyed 
i child in khaki, on a nearly spent pony. 

“Are you badly, badly hurted?” shouted Wee 
I Willie Winkie, as soon as he was within range. 
“You didn’t ought to be here.” 

“I don't know,” said Miss Allardyce ruefully, 
j ignoring the reproof. ‘“Good gracious, child, 
what are you doing here?” 

“You said you was going acwoss ve wiver,” 
panted Wee Willie Winkie, throwing himself off 
his pony. “And nobody — not even Coppy— 

I must go acwoss ve wiver, and I came after you 
ever so hard, but you wouldn’t stop, and now 
you’ve hurted yourself, and Coppy will be angwy 
wiv me, and — I’ve bwoken my awwest! I’ve 
bwoken my awwest!” 

The future Colonel of the 195th sat down and 
sobbed. In spite of the pain in her ankle the 
girl was moved. 

“Have you ridden all the way from canton- 
ments, little man? What for?” 

“You belonged to Coppy. Coppy told me so!” 
wailed Wee Willie Winkle disconsolately. “I 
saw him kissing you, and he said he was fonder 
of you van Bell or ve Butcha or me. And so I 
came. You must get up and come back. You 
didn’t ought to be here. Vis is a bad place, and 
I’ve bwoken my awwest.” 

“I can’t move, Winkie,” said Miss Allardyce, 


192 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 


with a groan. “I’ve hurt my foot. What shall 
I do?” 

She showed a readiness to weep afresh, which 
steadied Wee Willie Winkie, who had been 
brought up to believe that tears were the depth 
of unmanliness. Still, when one is as great a 
sinner as Wee Willie Winkie, even a man may 
be permitted to break down. 

“Winkie,” said Miss Allardyce, “when you’ve 
rested a little, ride back and tell them to send out 
something to carry me back in. It hurts fear- 
fully.” 

The child sat still for a little time and Miss Al- 
lardyce closed her eyes; the pain was nearly 
making her faint. She was roused by Wee Willie 
Winkie tying up the reins on his pony’s neck and 
setting it free with a vicious cut of his whip that 
made it whicker. The little animal headed to- 
wards the cantonments. 

“Oh, Winkie! What are you doing?” 

“Hush!” said Wee Willie Winkie. “Vere’s a 
man coming — one of ve Bad Men. I must stay 
wiv you. My faver says a man must always look 
after a girl. Jack will go home, and ven vey’ll 
come and look for us. Vat’s why I left him go.” 

Not one man, but two or three had appeared 
from behind the rocks of the hills, and the heart 
of Wee Willie Winkie sank within him, for just 
in this manner were the Goblins wont to steal out 
and vex Curdie’s soul. Thus had they played in 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE . 


193 

Curdie’s garden, he had seen the picture, and 
how they frightened the Princess’s nurse. He 
heard them talking to each other, and recognized 
with joy the bastard Pushto that he had picked 
up from one of his father’s grooms lately dis- 
missed. People who spoke that tongue could 
not be the Bad Men. They were only natives 
after all. 

They came up to the bowlders on which Miss 
Allardyce’s horse had blundered. 

Then rose from the rock Wee Willie Winkie, 
child of the Dominant Race, aged six and three- 
quarters, and said briefly and emphatically “Jao\” 
The pony had crossed the river-bed. 

The men laughed and laughter from natives 
was the one thing Wee Willie Winkie could not 
tolerate. He asked them what they wanted and 
why they did not depart. Other men with most 
evil faces and crooked-stocked guns crept out of 
the shadows of the hills, till, soon, Wee Willie 
Winkie was face to face with an audience some 
twenty strong. Miss Allardyce screamed. 

“Who are you?” said one of the men. 

“I am the Colonel Sahib’s son, and my order is 
that you go at once. You black men are 
frightening the Miss Sahib. One of you must 
run into cantonments and take the news that the 
Miss Sahib has hurt herself, and that the 
Colonel’s son is here with her.” 

“Put our feet into the trap?” was the laughing 
reply. “Hear this boy’s speech!” 


194 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 


“Say that I sent you — I, the Colonel’s son. 
They will give you money.” 

“What is the use of this talk? Take up the 
child and the girl, and we can at least ask for the 
ransom. Ours are the villages on the heights,” 
said a voice in the back-ground. 

These were the Bad Men — worse than Goblins 
— and it needed all Wee Willie Winkie’s training 
to prevent him from bursting into tears. But he 
felt that to cry before a native, excepting only 
his mother’s ayah , would be an infamy greater 
than any mutiny. Moreover, he, as future Colo- 
nel of the 195th, had that grim regiment at his 
back. 

“Are you going to carry us away?” said Wee 
Willie Winkie, very blanched and uncomfort- 
able. 

“Yes, my little Sahib Bahadur” said the tallest 
of the men, “and eat you afterwards.” 

“That is child’s talk,” said Wee Willie Winkie. 
“Men do not eat men.” 

A yell of laughter interrupted him, but he went 
on firmly, — “And if you do carry us away, I tell 
you that all my regiment will come up in ai day 
and kill you all without leaving one. Who will 
take my message to the Colonel Sahib?” 

Speech in any vernacular — and Wee Willie 
Winkie had a colloquial acquaintance with three 
— was easy to the boy who could not yet man- 
age his Vs” and “th’s” aright. 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 


195 


Another man joined the conference, crying: — 
“O foolish men! What this babe says it true. 
He is the heart’s heart of those white troops. 
For the sake of peace let them go both, for if he 
be taken, the regiment will break loose and gut 
the valley. Our villages are in the valley, and 
we shall not escape. That regiment are devils. „ 
They broke Khoda Yar’s breast-bone with kicks 
when he tried to take the rifles; and if we touch 
this child they will fire and rape and plunder for 
a month, till nothing remains. Better to send a 
man back to take the message and get a reward. 

I say that this child is their God, and that they 
will spare none of us, nor our women, if we harm 
him.” 

It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed groom 
of the Colonel, who made the diversion, and an 
angry and heated discussion followed. Wee 
Willie Winkie, standing over Miss Allardyce, 
waited the upshot. Surely his “wegiment,” his 
own “wegiment,” would not desert him if they 
knew of his extremity. 

The riderless pony brought the news to the 
195th, though there had been consternation in 
the Colonel’s household for an hour before. The 
little beast came in through the parade-ground in 
front of the main barracks, where the men were 
settling down to play Spoil-five till the afternoon. 
Devlin, the Color Sergeant of E Company, 
glanced at the empty saddle and tumbled through 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 


196 

the barrack-rooms, kicking up each Room Cor- 
poral as he passed. “Up ye beggars! There’s 
something happened to the Colonel’s son,” he 
shouted. 

“He couldn’t fall off! S’elp me, ’e couldn't fall 
off,’’ blubbered a drummer-boy. “Go an’ hunt 
acrost the river. He’s over there if he’s any- 
where, and’ maybe those Pathans have got ’im. 
For the love o’ Gawd don’t look for ’im in the 
nullahs! Let’s go over the river.” 

“There’s sense in Mott yet,” said Devlin. “E 
Company, double out to the river — sharp!” 

So E Company, in its shirt sleeves mainly, 
doubled for the dear life, and in the rear toiled 
the perspiring Sergeant, adjuring it to double yet 
faster. The cantonment was alive with the men 
of the 195th hunting for Wee Willie Winkie, and 
the Colonel finally overtook E Company, far too 
exhausted to swear, struggling in the pebbles of 
the river-bed. 

Up the hill under which Wee Willie Winkie’s 
Bad Men were discussing the wisdom of carrying 
off the child and the girl, a look-out fired two 
shots. 

“What have I said?” shouted Din Mahommed. 
“There is the warning! The pulton are out al- 
ready and are coming across the plain! Get 
away! Let us not be seen with the boy!” 

The men waited for an instant, and then, as 
another shot was fired, withdrew into the hills, 
silently as they had appeared, 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 


19 7 


'The wegiment is coming/’ said Wee Willie 
Winkle confidently to Miss Allardyce, “and it’s 
all wight. Don’t cwy!” 

He needed the advice himself, for ten minutes 
later, when his father came up, he was weeping 
bitterly with his head in Miss Allardyce’s lap. 

And the men of the 195th carried him home 
with shouts and rejoicings; and Coppy, who had 
ridden a horse into a lather, met him, and, to his 
intense disgust, kissed him openly in the pres- 
ence of the men. 

But there was balm for his dignity. His father 
assured him that not only would the breaking of 
arrest be condoned, but that the good-conduct 
badge would be restored as soon as his mother 
could sew it on his blouse-sleeve. Miss Allardyce 
had told the Colonel a story that made him proud 
of his son. 

“She belonged to you, Coppy,” said Wee 
Willie Winkie, indicating Miss Allardyce with a 
grimy forefinger. I knew she didn’t ought to go 
acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve wegiment would 
come to me if I sent Jack home.” 

“You’re a hero, Winkie,” said Coppy — “a 
pukka hero!” 

“I don’t know what vat means,” said Wee 
Willie Winkie, “but you mustn’t call me Winkie 
any no more. I’m Percival Will’am Will’ams.” 

And in this manner did Wee Willie Winkie 
enter into his manhood. 

















— 

' 






4 













I 













. 




■ 

* 





































* 


















BAA, BAA, BLACK SHEEP 
















BAA, BAA, BLACK SHEEP. 

THE FIRST BAG. 

They were putting Punch to bed — the ayah 
and the hamal and Meeta, the big Surti boy with 
the red and gold turban. Judy, already tucked 
inside her mosquito-curtains, was nearly asleep. 
Punch had been allowed to stay up for dinner. 
Many privileges had been accorded to Punch 
within the last ten days, and a greater kindness 
from the people of his world had encompassed 
his ways and works, which were mostly obstrep- 
erous. He sat on the edge of his bed and swung 
his bare legs defiantly. 

“Punch -baba going to bye-lo?” said the ayah 
suggestively. 

“No,” said Punch. “Punch -baba wants the 
story about the Ranee that was turned into a 
tiger. Meeta must tell it, and the hamal shall 
hide behind the door and make tiger-noises at 
the proper time.” 

“But Ju dy-baba will wake up,” said the ayah. 

“Jud y-baba is waking,” piped a small voice 
from the mosquito-curtains. “There was a Ranee 


202 


BAA, BAA y BLACK SHEEP. 


that lived at Delhi. Go on, Meeta,” and 
she fell fast asleep again while Meeta began the 
story. 

Never had Punch secured the telling of that 
tale with so little opposition. He reflected for a 
long time. The hamal made the tiger-noises in 
twenty different keys. 

“'Top!” said Punch, authoritatively. “Why 
doesn’t Papa come in and say he is going to give 
me put-put ?” 

“Punch -paba is going away,” said the ayah. 
“In another week there will be no Punch-baba 
to pull my hair any more.” She sighed softly, 
for the boy of the household was very dear to her 
heart. 

“Up the Ghauts in a train?” said Punch, stand- 
ing on his bed. “All the way to Nassick where 
the Ranee-Tiger lives?” 

“Not to Nassick this year, little Sahib,” said 
Meeta, lifting him on his shoulder. “Down to 
the sea where the cocoanuts are thrown, and 
across the sea in a big ship. Will you take 
Meeta with you to BclaitY ’ 

“You shall all come,” said Punch, from the 
height of Meeta’s strong arm. “Meeta and the 
ayah and the hamal and Bhini-in-the-Garden, and 
the salaam-Captain-Sahib-snake-man.” 

There was no mockery in Meeta’s voice when 
he replied — “Great is the Sahib’s favor,” and laid 
the little man down in the bed, while the ayah , sit- 




BAA , BAA, BLACK SHEEP. 


203 


ting in the moonlight at the doorway, lulled him 
to sleep with an interminable canticle such as 
j they sing in the Roman Catholic Church, at 
Parel. Punch curled himself into a ball and 
I slept. 

Next morning Judy shouted that there was a 
rat in the nursery, and thus he forgot to tell her 
the wonderful news. It did not much matter, 
for Judy was only three and she would not have 
understood. But Punch was five; and he knew 
that going to England would be much nicer than 
a trip to Nassick. 

And Papa and Mamma sold the brougham and 
the piano, and stripped the house, and curtailed 
the allowance of crockery for the daily meals, 
and took long counsel together over a bundle of 
letters bearing the Rocklington post mark. 

“The worst of it is that one can't be certain of 
anything," said Papa, pulling his mustache. 
“The letters in themselves are excellent, and the 
terms are moderate enough." 

“The worst of it is that the children will grow 
up away from me," thought Mamma: but she did 
not say it aloud. 

“We are only one case among hundreds," said 
Papa, bitterly. “You shall go home again in 
five years, dear." 

“Punch will be ten then — and Judy eight. Oh 
how long and long and long the time will be! 
And we have to leave them among strangers." 


204 


BAA , BAA } BLACK SHEEP. 


“Punch is a cheery little chap. He’s sure to 
make friends wherever he goes.” 

“And who could help loving my Ju?” 

They were standing over the cots in the 
nursery late at night, and I think that Mamma 
was crying softly. After Papa had gone away, 
she knelt down by the side of Judy’s cot. The 
ayah saw her and put up a prayer that the 
memsahib might never find the love of her chil- 
dren taken away from her and given to a 
stranger. 

Mamma’s own prayer was a slightly illogical 
one. Summarized it ran: — “Let strangers love 
my children and be as good to them as I should 
be, but let me preserve their love and their confi- 
dence for ever and ever. Amen.” Punch 
scratched himself in his sleep, and Judy moaned 
a little. That seems to be the only answer to the 
prayer: and, next day, they all went down to the 
sea, and there was a scene at the Apollo Bunder 
when Punch discovered that Meeta could not 
come too, and Judy learned that the ayah must 
be left behind But Punch found a thousand fas- 
cinating things in the rope, block, and steam- 
pipe line on the big P. and O. Steamer, long 
before Meeta and the ayah had dried their tears. 

“Come back, Punch -baba,” said the ayah. 

“Come back,” said Meeta, and be a Burra 
Sahib” 

“Yes,” said Punch, lifted up in his father’s 


BAA, BAA } BLACK SHEEP. 


205 

arms to wave good-bye. “Yes, I will come back, 
and I will be a Burra Sahib Balia dur\” 

At the end of the first day Punch demanded to 
be set down in England, which he was certain 
must be close at hand. Next day there was a 
merry breeze, and Punch was very sick. “When 
I come back to Bombay,” said Punch on his re- 
covery, “I will come by the road — in a broom- 
gharri. This is a very naughty ship.” 

The Swedish boatswain consoled him, and he 
modified his opinions as the voyage went on. 
There was so much to see and to handle and ask 
questions about that Punch nearly forgot the 
ayah and Meeta and the hamal, and with difficulty 
remembered a few words of the Hindustani, once 
his second-speech. 

But Judy was much worse. The day before 
the steamer reached Southampton, Mamma 
asked her if she would not like to see the ayah 
again. Judy’s blue eyes turned to the stretch of 
sea that had swallowed all her tiny past, and she 
said: — “Ayah\ what ayahV 

Mamma cried over her and Punch marvelled. 
It was then that he heard for the first time 
Mamma’s passionate appeal to him never to let 
Judy forget Mamma. Seeing that Judy was 
young, ridiculously young, and that Mamma, 
every evening for four weeks past, had come into 
the cabin to sing her and Punch to sleep with a 
mysterious tune that he called “Sonny, my Soul,” 


206 


BAA , BAA, BLACK SHEEP. 


Punch could not understand what Mamma 
meant. But he strove to do his duty; for, the 
moment Mamma left the cabin, he said to Judy: 
— “Ju, you bemember Mamma?” 

“ ’Torse I do,” said Judy. 

“Then always bemember Mamma, ’r else I 
won’t give you the paper ducks that the red- 
haired Captain Sahib cut out for me.” 

So Judy promised always to “bemember Mam- 
ma.” 

Many and many a time was Mamma’s com-' 
mand laid upon Punch, and Papa would say the 
same thing with an insistance that awed the 
child. 

“You must make haste and learn to write, 
Punch,” said Papa, “and then you’ll be able to 
write letters to us in Bombay.” 

“I’ll come into your room,” said Punch, and 
Papa choked. 

Papa and Mamma were always choking in 
those days. If Punch took Judy to task for 
not “bemembering,” they choked. If Punch 
sprawled on the sofa in the Southampton lodg- 
ing-house and sketched his future in purple and 
gold, they choked ; and so they did if Judy put up 
her mouth for a kiss. 

Through many days all four were vagabonds 
on the face of the earth: — Punch with no one to 
give orders to, Judy too young for anything, and 
Papa and Mamma grave, ^distracted, and chok- 
ing. 


BAA, BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 2 oy 

“Where,” demanded Punch, wearied of a 
loathsome contrivance on four wheels with a 
mound of luggage atop — “ where is our broom- 
gharri ? This thing talks so much that I can’t 
talk. Where is our own broom -gharri?” When 
I was at Bandstand before we corned away, I 
i asked Inverarity Sahib why he was sitting in it, 

| and he said it was his own. And I said, ‘I will 
I give it you’ — I like Invararity Sahib — and I said, 
‘Can you put your legs through the pully-wag 
loops by the windows?’ And Inverarity Sahib 
said, No, and laughed. / can put my legs 
through the pully-wag loops. I can put my legs 
! through these pully-wag loops. Look! Oh, 
Mamma’s crying again! I didn’t know. I 
I wasn’t not to do so.” 

Punch drew his legs out of the loops of the 
four-wheeler: the door opened and he slid to the 
i earth, in a cascade of parcels, at the door of an 
austere little villa whose gates bore the legend 
“Downe Lodge.” Punch gathered himself to- 
i gether and eyed the house with disfavor. It 
stood on a sandy road, and a cold wind tickled 
his knickerbockered legs. 

“Let us go away,” said Punch. “This is not a 
pretty place.” 

But Mamma and Papa and Judy had quitted 
the cab, and all the luggage was being taken 
into the house. At the doorstep stood a woman 
in black, and she smiled largely, with dry 


208 


BAA , BAA , £L^C£ SHEEP. 


chapped lips. Behind her was a man, big, bony, 
gray, and lame as to one leg — behind him a boy 
of twelve, black-haired and oily in appearance. 
Punch surveyed the trio, and advanced without 
fear, as he had been accustomed to do in Bombay 
when callers came and he happened to be play- I 
ing in the veranda. 

“How do you do?” said he. “I am Punch.” 
But they were all looking at the luggage — all ex- 7 
cept the gray man, who shook hands with Punch 
and said he was “a smart little fellow.” There 
was much running about and banging of boxes, 
and Punch curled himself up on the sofa in the . 
dining-room and considered things. 

“I don’t like these people,” said Punch. “But 
never mind. We’ll go away soon. We have al- . 
ways went away soon from everywhere. I wish , 
we was gone back to Bombay soon.” 

The wish bore no fruit. For six days Mamma 
wept at intervals, and showed the woman in 
black all Punch’s clothes — a liberty which Punch 
resented. “But p’raps she’s a new white ayah” j 
he thought. “I’m to call her Antirosa, but she J 
doesn’t call me Sahib She says just Punch,” he 
confided to Judy. “What is Antirosa?” 

Jud> didn’t know. Neither she nor Punch 
had heard anything of an animal called an aunt. 
Their world had been Papa and Mamma, who 
knew everything, permitted everything, and 
loved everybody — even Punch when he used to 


BAA, BAA f BLACK SHEEP. 


209 


go into the garden at Bombay and fill his nails 
with mould after the weekly nail-cutting, be- 
cause, as he explained between two strokes of 
the slipper to his sorely tried Father, his fingers 
“felt so new at the ends.” 

In an undefined way Punch judged it advis- 
able to keep both parents between himself and 
the woman in black, and the boy in black hair. 
He did not approve of them. He liked the gray 
man, who had expressed a wish to be called 
“Uncle harri.” They nodded at each other when 
they met, and the gray man showed him a little 
ship with rigging that took up and down. 

“She is a model of the Brisk — the little Brisk 
that was sore exposed that day at Navarino.” 
The gray man hummed the last words and fell 
into a reverie. ‘Til tell you about Navarino, 
Punch, when we go for walks together; and you 
mustn’t touch the ship, because she’s the Brisk.” 

Long before that walk, the first of many, was 
taken, they roused Punch and Judy in the chill 
dawn of a February morning to say Good-by; 
and of all people in the wide earth to Papa and 
Mamma — both crying this time. Punch was 
very sleepy and Judy was cross. 

“Don’t forget us,” pleaded Mamma. “Oh, my 
little son, don’t forget us, and see that Judy re- 
members too.” 

“I’ve told Judy to bemember,” said Punch, 
wriggling, for his father’s beard tickled his neck. 


210 


BAA, BAA t BLACK SHEEP. 


“I’ve told Judy — ten — forty — ’leven thousand 
times. But Ju’s so young — quite a baby — isn’t 
she?” 

“Yes,” said Papa, “quite a baby, and you must 
be good to Judy, and make haste to learn to write 
and — and — and” 

Punch was back in his bed again. Judy was 
fast asleep, and there was the rattle of a cab be- 
low. Papa and Mamma had gone away. Not 
to Nassick; that was across the sea. To some 
place much nearer, of course, and equally of 
course they would return. They came back after 
dinner-parties, and Papa had come back after he • 
had been to a place called “The Snows,” and 
Mamma with him, to Punch and Judy at Mrs. 
Inverarity’s house in Marine Lines. Assuredly 
they would come back again. So Punch fell 
asleep till the true morning, when the black- 
haired boy met him with the information that 
Papa and Mamma had gone to Bombay, and that 
he and Judy were to stay at Downe Lodge “for- 
ever.” Antirosa, tearfully appealed to for a con- 
tradiction, said that Harry had spoken the truth, 
and that it behooved Punch to fold up his clothes 
neatly on going to bed. Punch went out and 
wept bitterly with Judy, into whose fair head he 
had driven some ideas of the meaning of separa- 
tion. 

When a matured man discovers that he has 
been deserted by Providence, deprived of his 


BAA, BAA y BLACK SHEEP. 


2 II 


Gcd, and cast without help, comfort, or sym- 
pathy, upon a world which is new and strange to 
him, his despair, which may find expression, or 
the more satisfactory diversion of suicide, is gen- 
erally supposed to be impressive. A child, un- 
der exactly similar circumstances as far as its 
knowledge goes, cannot very well curse God and 
die. It howls till its nose is red, its eyes are sore, 
and its head aches. Punch and Judy, through 
no fault of their own, had lost all their world. 
They sat in the hall and cried; the black-haired 
boy looking on from afar. 

The model of the ship availed nothing, though 
the gray man assured Punch that he might pull 
the rigging up and down as much as he pleased; 
and Judy was promised free entry into the kit- 
chen. They wanted Papa and Mamma gone to 
Bombay beyond the seas, and their grief while it 
lasted was without remedy. 

When the tears ceased the house was very 
still. Antirosa had decided it was better to let 
the children “have their cry out ,” and the boy 
had gone to school. Punch raised his head from 
the floor and sniffed mournfully. Judy was 
nearly asleep. Three short years had not taught 
her how to bear sorrow with full knowledge. 
There was a distant, dull boom in the air — a re- 
peated heavy thud. Punch knew that sound in 
Bombay in the Monsoon. It was the sea — the 
sea that must be traversed before any one could 
get to Bombay. 


212 


BAA , BAA , 5L4CX SHEEP. 


“Quick, ju!” he cried, “we’re close to the sea. 
I can hear it! Listen! That’s where they’ve 
went. P’raps we can catch them if we was in 
time. They didn’t mean to go without us. 
They’ve only forgot.” 

“Iss,” said Judy. “They’ve only forgotted. 
Less go to the sea.” 

The hall-door was open and so was the 
garden-gate. 

“It’s very, very big, this place,” he said, look- 
ing cautiously down the road, “and we will get 
lost; but I will find a man and order him to take 
me back to my house — like I did in Bombay.” 

He took Judy by the hand, and the two fled 
hatless in the direction of the sound of the sea. 
Downe Villa was almost the last of a range of 
newly built houses running out, through a chaos 
of brick-mounds, to a heath where gypsies occa- 
sionally camped and where the Garrison Artillery 
of Rocklington practised. There were few people 
to be seen, and the children might have been 
taken for those of the soldiery who range far. 
Half an hour the wearied little legs tramped 
across heath, potato-field, and sand-dune. 

“I’se so tired,” said Judy, “and Mamma will be 
angry.” 

“Mamma’s never angry. I suppose she is wait- 
ing at the sea now while Papa gets tickets. We’ll 
find them and go along with them. Ju, you musn’t 
sit down. Only a little more and we’ll come to the 


BAA, BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 


213 

sea. Jit, if you sit down I’ll thmack you!” said 
Punch. 

They climbed another dune, and came upon 
the great gray sea at low tide. Hundreds of crabs 
were scuttling about the beach, but there was no 
trace of Papa and Mamma, not even of a ship 
upon the waters — nothing but sand and mud for 
miles and miles. 

And “Uncleharri” found them by chance — 
very muddy and very forlorn — Punch dissolved 
in tears, but trying to divert Judy with an “ickle 
trab,” and Judy wailing to the pitiless horizon for 
“Mamma, Mamma!” — and again “Mamma!” 


THE SECOND BAG. 

All this time not a word about Black Sheep. 
He came later, and Harry the black-haired boy 
was mainly responsible for his coming. 

Judy- — who could help loving little Judy? — 
passed, by special permit, into the kitchen and 
thence straight to Aunt Rosa’s heart. Harry 
was Aunty Rosa’s one child, and Punch was the 
extra boy about the house. There was no spe- 
cial place for him or his little affairs, and he was 
forbidden to sprawl on sofas and explain his 
ideas about the manufacture of this world and 
his hopes for his future. Sprawling was lazy and 
wore out sofas and little boys were not expected 


214 


BAA, BAA } BLACK SHEEP. 


to talk. They were talked to, and the talking to 
was intended for the benefit of their morals. As 
the unquestioned despot of the house at Bombay, 
Punch could not quite understand how he came 
to be of no account in this his new life. 

Harry might reach across the table and take 
what he wanted; Judy might point and get what 
she wanted. Punch was forbidden to do either. 
The gray man was his great hope and stand-by 
for many months after Mamma and Papa left, 
and he had forgotten to tell Judy to “bemember 
Mamma.” 

This lapse was excusable, because in the in- 
terval he had been introduced by Aunty Rosa to 
two very impressive things — an abstraction called 
God, the intimate friend and ally of Aunty Rosa, 
generally believed to live behind the kitchen- 
range because it was hot there — and a dirty 
brown book filled with unintelligible dots and 
marks. Punch was always anxious to oblige 
everybody. He, therefore, welded the story of 
the Creation on to what he could recollect of his 
Indian fairy tales, and scandalized Aunty Rosa 
by repeating the result to Judy. It was a sin, a 
grievous sin, and Punch was talked to for a 
quarter of an hour. He could not understand 
where the iniquity came in, but was careful not to 
repeat the offence, because Auntv Rosa told him 
that God had heard every word he had said and 
was very angry. If this were true why didn’t 


BAA , BAA , 5L4CK SHEEP. 


215 


God come and say so, thought Punch, and dis- 
missed the matter from his mind. Afterwards he 
learned to know the Lord as the only thing in the 
world more awful than Aunty Rosa — as a crea- 
ture that stood in the background and counted 
the strokes of the cane. 

But the reading was, just then, a much more 
serious matter than any creed. Aunty Rosa sat 
him upon a table and told him that A B meant ab. 

“Why?” said Punch. “A is a and B is bee. 
Why does A B mean ab?” 

“Because I tell you it does,” said Aunty Rosa, 
“and you’ve got to say it.” 

Punch said it accordingly, and for a month, 
hugely against his will, stumbled through the 
brown book, not in the least comprehending 
what it meant. But Uncle Harry, who walked 
much and generally alone, was wont to come 
into the nursery and suggest to Aunty Rosa that 
Punch should walk with him. He seldom spoke, 
but he showed Punch all Rocklington, from the 
mud-banks and the sand of the back-bay to the 
great harbors where ships lay at anchor, and the 
dockyards where the hammers were never still, 
and the marine-store shops, and the shiny brass 
counters in the Offices where Uncle Harry went 
once every three months with a slip of blue paper 
and received sovereigns in exchange; for he held 
a wound-pension. Punch heard, too, from his 
lips the story of the battle of Navarino, where 


21 6 BAA, baa } black sheep . 

the sailors of the Fleet, for three days afterwards, 
were deaf as posts and could only sign to each 
other. “That was because of the noise of the 
guns,” said Uncle Harry, “and I have got the 
wadding of a bullet somewhere inside me now.” 

Punch regarded him with curiosity. He had 
not the least idea what wadding was, and his 
notion of a bullet was a dockyard cannon-ball 
bigger than his own head. How could Uncle 
Harry keep a cannon-ball inside him? He was 
ashamed to ask, for fear Uncle Harry might be 
angry. 

Punch had never known what anger — real 
anger — meant until one terrible day when Harry 
had taken his paint-box to paint a boat with, and 
Punch had protested with a loud and lamentable 
voice. Then Uncle Harry had appeared on the 
scene and, muttering something about “stran- 
gers’ children,” and with a stick smitten the black- 
haired boy across the shoulders till he wept and 
yelled, and Aunty Rosa came in and abused 
Uncle Harry for cruelty to his own flesh and 
blood, and Punch shuddered to the tips of his 
shoes. “It wasn’t my fault,” he explained to the 
boy, but both Harry and Aunty Rosa said that 
it was, and that Punch had told tales, and for a 
week there were no more walks with Uncle 
Harry. 

But that week brought a great joy to Punch. 

He had repeated till he was thrice weary the 


BAA, BAA f BLACK SHEEP. 2 iy 

statement that “the Cat lay on the Mat ana the 
Rat came in.” 

“Now I can truly read,” said Punch, “and now 
I will never read anything in the world.” 

He put the brown book in the cupboard where 
his school-books lived and accidentally tumbled 
out a venerable volume, without covers, labelled 
Sharpe’s Magazine. There was the most porten- 
tous picture of a griffin on the first page, with 
verses below. The griffin carried off one sheep a 
day from a German village, till a man came with 
a “falchion” and spilt the griffin open. Good- 
ness only knew what a falchion was, but there 
was the Griffin, and his history was an improve- 
ment upon the eternal Cat. 

“This,” said Punch, “means things, and now I 
will know all about everything in all the world.” 
He read till the light failed, not understanding a 
tithe of the meaning, but tantalized by glimpses 
of new worlds hereafter to be revealed. 

“What is a ‘falchion?’ What is a e-wee lamb’? 
What is a ‘base w^urper’? What is a ‘verdant 
me-ad’?” he demanded, with flushed cheeks, at 
bedtime, of the astonished Aunt Rosa. 

“Say your prayers and go to sleep,” she re- 
plied, and that was all the help Punch then or 
afterwards found at her hands in the new and 
delightful exercise of reading. 

“Aunt Rosa only knows about God and things 
like that,” argued Punch. “Uncle Harry will 
tell me.” 


2 18 


BAA, BAA } BLACK SHEEP. 


The next walk proved that Uncle Harry could 
not help either; but he allowed Punch to talk, 
and even sat down on a bench to hear about the 
Griffin. Other walks brought other stories as 
Punch ranged further afield, for the house held 
large store of old books that no one ever opened 
— from Frank Fairlegh in serial numbers, and 
the earlier poems of Tennyson, contributed 
anonymously to Sharpe’s Magazine, to ’62 Ex- 
hibition Catalogues, gay with colors and delight- 
fully incomprehensible, and odd leaves of Gulli- 
ver’s Travels. 

As soon as Punch could string a few pot- 
hooks together, he wrote to Bombay, demanding 
by return of post “all the books in all the world.” 
Papa could not comply with this modest indent, 
but sent Grimm’s Fairy Tales and a Hans And- 
ersen. That was enough. If he were only left 
alone Punch could pass, at any hour he chose, 
into a land of his own, beyond reach of Aunty 
Rosa and her God, Harry and his teasements, 
and Judy’s claims to be played with. 

“Don’t disturve me, I’m reading. Go and play 
in the kitchen,” grunted Punch. “Aunty Rosa 
lets you go there.” Judy was cutting her second 
teeth and was fretful. She appealed to Aunty 
Rosa, who descended on Punch. 

“I was reading,” he explained, “reading a 
book. I want to read.” 

“You’re only doing that to show off,” said 


BAA , BAA, BLACK SHEEP. *219 

Aunty Rosa. “But we’ll see. Play with Judy 
now, and don’t open a book for a week.” 

Judy did not pass a very enjoyable playtime 
with Punch, who was consumed with indigna- 
tion. There was a pettiness at the bottom of the 
prohibition which puzzled him. 

“It’s what I like to do,” he said, “and she’s 
found out that and stopped me. Don’t cry, Ju — 
it wasn’t your fault — - please don’t cry, or she’ll 
say I made you.” 

Ju loyally mopped up her tears, and the two 
played in their nursery, a room in the basement 
and half underground, to which they were regu- 
larly sent after the midday dinner while Aunty 
Rosa slept. • She drank wine — that is to say, 
something from a bottle in the cellaret — for her 
stomach’s sake, but if she did not fall asleep she 
would sometimes come into the nursery to see 
that the children were really playing. Now 
bricks, wooden hoops, ninepins, and china-ware 
cannot amuse forever, especially when all Fairy- 
land is to be won by the mere opening of a book, 
reading to Judy or telling her interminable tales, 
and, as often as not, Punch would be discovered 
That was an offence in the eyes of the law, and 
Judy would be whisked off by Aunty Rosa, while 
Punch was left to play alone, “and be sure that I 
hear you doing it.” 

It was not a cheering employ, for he had to 
make a playful noise. At last, with infinite craft, 


220 


BAA , BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 


he devised an arrangement whereby the table 
could be supported as to three legs on toy bricks, 
leaving the fourth clear to bring down on the 
floor He could work the table with one hand 
and hold a book with the other. This he did till 
an evil day when Aunty Rosa pounced upon him 
unawares and told him that he was “acting a lie.” 1 

“If you’re old enough to do that,” she said — 
her temper was always worst after dinner — 1 
“you’re old enough to be beaten.” 

“But — I’m — I’m not a animal!” said Punch 
aghast. He remembered Uncle Harry and the 
stick, and turned white. Aunty Rosa had hidden 
a light cane behind her, and Punch was beaten 
then and there over the shoulders. It was a reve- 
lation to him. The room-door was shut, and he 
was left to weep himself into repentance and 
work out his own Gospel of Life. 

Aunty Rosa, he argued, had the power to beat 
him with many stripes. It was unjust and cruel, 
and Mamma and Papa would never have allowed 
it. Unless perhaps, as Aunty Rosa seemed to 
imply, they had sent secret orders. In which 
case he was abandoned indeed. It would be dis- 
creet in the future to propitiate Aunty Rosa, but, 
then, again, even in matters in which he was 
innocent, he had been accused of wishing to 
“show off.” He had “shown off” before visitors 
when he had attacked a strange gentleman — 
Harry’s uncle, not his own — with the requests for 


BAA , BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 


22 1 


information about the Griffin and the falchion, 
and the precise nature of the Tilbury in which 
Frank Fairlegh rode — all points of paramount 
interest which he was bursting to understand. 
Clearly it would not do to pretend to care for 
Aunty Rosa. 

At this point Harry entered and stood afar off, 
eying Punch, a dishevelled heap in the corner of 
the room, with disgust. 

“You’re a liar — a young liar,” said Harry, with 
great unction, “and you’re to have tea down here 
because you’re not fit to speak to us. And you’re 
not to speak to Judy again till Mother gives you 
leave. You’ll corrupt her. You’re only fit to 
associate with the servant. Mother says so.” 

Having reduced Punch to a second agony of 
tears, Harry departed upstairs with the news that 
Punch was still rebellious. 

Uncle Harry sat uneasily in the dining-room. 
“Damn it all, Rosa,” said he at last, “can’t you 
leave the child alone? He’s a good enough little 
chap when I meet him.” 

“He puts on his best manners with you, 
Henry,” said Aunty Rosa, “but I’m afraid, Fm 
very much afraid, that he is the Black Sheep of 
the family.” 

Harry heard and stored up the name for future 
use. Judy cried till she was bidden to stop, her 
brother not being worth tears; and the evening 
concluded with the return of Punch to the upper 


222 


BAA, BAA } BLACK SHEEP. 


regions and a private sitting at which all the 
blinding horrors of Hell were revealed to Punch 
with such store of imagery as Aunty Rosa’s nar- 
row mind possessed. 

Most grievous of all was Judy’s round-eyed re- 
proach, and Punch went to bed in the depths cf 
the Valley of Humiliation. He shared his room 
with Harry and knew the torture in store. For 
an hour and a half he had to answer that young 
gentleman’s question as to his motives for telling 
a lie, and a grievous lie, the precise quantity of 
punishment inflicted by Aunty Rosa, and had 
also to profess his deep gratitude for such relig- 
ious instruction as Harry thought fit to impart. 

From that day began the downfall of Punch, 
now Black Sheep. 

“Untrustworthy in one thing, untrustworthy 
in all,” said Aunty Rosa, and Harry felt that 
Black Sheep was delivered into his hands. He 
would wake him up in the night to ask him why 
he was such a liar. 

“I don’t know,” Punch would reply. 

“Then don’t you think you ought to get up 
and pray to God for a new heart?” 

“Y-yess.” 

“Get out and pray, then!” And Punch would 
get out of bed with raging hate in his heart 
against all the world, seen and unseen. He was 
always tumbling into trouble. Harry had a 
knack of cross-examining him as to his day’s 


BAA, BAA f BLACK SHEEP . 


223 


doings, which seldom failed to lead him, sleepy 
and savage, into half a dozen contradictions — all 
duly reported to Aunty Rosa next morning. 

“But it wasn't a lie,” Punch would begin, 
charging into a labored explanation that landed 
him more hopelessly in the mire. “I said that I 
didn’t say my prayers twice over in the day, and 
that was on Tuesday Once I did. I know I did, 
but Harry said I didn’t,” and so forth, till the 
tension brought tears, and he was dismissed from 
the table in disgrace 

“You usen’t to be as bad as this?” said Judy, 
awe-stricken at the catalogue of Black Sheep’s 
crime. “Why are you so bad now?” . 

“I don’t know,” Black Sheep would reply. 
“I’m not, if I only wasn’t bothered upside down. 
I knew what I did, and I want to say so; but 
Harry always makes it out different somehow, 
and Aunty Rosa doesn’t believe a word I say. 
Oh, Ju! don’t you say I’m bad too.” 

“Aunty Rosa says you are,” said Judy. “She 
told the Vicar so when he came yesterday.” 

“Why does she tell all the people outside the 
house about me? It isn’t fair,” said Black Sheep. 
“When I as in Bombay, and was bad — doing bad, 
not made-up bad like this — Mamma told Papa, 
and Papa told me he knew, and that was all. Out- 
side people didn’t know too — even Meeta didn’t 
know.” 

“I don’t remember/ 'said Judy wistfully. “I 


224 


BAA, BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 


was all little then. Mamma was just as fond of 
you as she was of me, wasn’t she?” 

“Course she was. So was Papa. So was 
everybody.” 

■“Aunty Rosa likes me more than she does you. 
She says that you are a Trial, and a Black Sheep, j 
and I’m not to speak to you more than I can j 
help.” 

“Always? Not outside of the times when you 
mustn’t speak to me at all?” 

Judy nodded her head mournfully. Black 
Sheep turned away in despair, but Judy’s arms 
were round his neck. 

“Never mind, Punch,” she whispered. “I will 
speak to you just the same as ever and ever. 
You’re my own own brother, though you are — ] 
though Aunty Rosa says you’re Bad, and Harry 
says you’re a little coward. He says that if I 
pulled your hair hard, you’d cry.” 

“Pull, then,” said Punch. 

Judy pulled gingerly. 

“Pull harder — as hard as you can! There! I 
don’t mind how much you pull it now. If you’ll 
speak to me same as ever I’ll let you pull it as 
much as you like — pull it out if you like. But I 
know if Harry came and stood by and made you 
do it I’d cry.” 

So the two children sealed the compact with a 
kiss, and Black Sheep’s heart was cheered within 
him, and by extreme caution and careful avoid- 


BAA, BAA } BLACK SHEEP. 


225 


ance of Harry he acquired virtue, and was al- 
lowed to read undisturbed for a week Uncle 
Harry took him for walks and consoled him with 
f rough tenderness, never calling him Black Sheep. 
I “It’s good for you, I suppose, Punch,” he used 
to say. “Let us sit down. I’m getting tired.” 

: His steps led him now not to the beach, but to 
the Cemetery of Rocklington, amid the potato- 
fields. For hours the gray man would sit on a 
tombstone, while Black Sheep read epitaphs, and 
I: then with a sigh would stump home again. 

“I shall lie there soon,” said he to Black Sheep, 
! one winter evening, when his face showed white 
I as a worn silver coin under the lights of the 
I chapel-lodge. “You needn’t tell Aunty Rosa.” 

A mon :h later, he turned sharp round, ere half 
a morning walk was completed, and stumped 
back to the house. “Put me to bed, Rosa,” he 
muttered. “I’ve walked my last. The wadding 
has found me out.” 

They put him to bed, and for a fortnight the 
shadow of his sickness lay upon the house, and 
Black Sheep went to and fro unobserved. Papa 
had sent him some new books, and he was told 
to keep quiet. He retired into his own world, 
and was perfectly happpy. Even at night his 
felicity was unbroken. He could lie in bed and 
string himself tales of travel and adventure while 
Harry was downstairs. 

“Uncle Harry’s going to die,” said Judy, who 
now lived almost entirely with Aunty Rosa. 


226 BAA, BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 

“I’m very sorry,” said Black Sheep soberly. 
“He told me that a long time ago.” 

Aunty Rosa heard the conversation. “Will 
nothing check your wicked tongue?” she said ^ 
angrily. There were blue circles round her eyes, fl 

Black Sheep retreated to the nursery and read ■. 
“Cometh up as a flower” with deep and uncom- 9 
prehending interest. He had been forbidden to 
read it on account of its “sinfulness,” but the I 
bonds of the Universe were crumbling, and | 
Aunty Rosa was in great grief. 

“I’m glad,” said Black Sheep. “She’s un- 
happy now. It wasn’t a lie, though. / knew. 1 
He told me not to tell.” 

That night Black Sheep woke with a start 
Harry was not in the room, and there was a 
sound of sobbing on the floor. Then the voice 
of Uncle Harry, singing the song of the Battle of 
Navarino, cut through the darkness: — 

“Our vanship was the Asia — 

The Albion and Genoa!” 

“He’s getting well,” thought Black Sheep, who 
knew the song through all its seventeen verses. ■ 
But the blood froze at his little heart as he 
thought. The voice leapt an octave and rang 
shrill as a boatswain’s pipe: — 

“And next came on the lovely Rose, 

And the little Brisk was sore exposed 
The Philomel, her fire ship, closed, 

That day at Navarino.” 

“That day at Navarino, Uncle Harry!” shouted 


BAA, BAA , BLACK SHEEP . 


227 

i Black Sheep, half wild with excitement and fear 
of he knew not what. 

A door opened and Aunty Rosa screamed up 
the staircase: — “Hush! For God’s sake hush, 

| you little devil. Uncle Harry is dead\” 



THE THIRD BAG. 

“I wonder what will happen to me now,” 
i thought Black Sheep, when the semi-pagan rites 
peculiar to the burial of the Dead in middle-class 
houses had been accomplished, and Aunty Rosa, 
awful in black crape, had returned to this life. 
“I don’t think I’ve done anything bad that she 
knows of. I suppose I will soon. She will be 
very cross after Uncle Harry’s dying, and Harry 
will be cross, too. I’ll keep in the nursery.” 

Unfortunately for Punch’s plan, it was decided 
that he should be sent to a day-school which 
Harry attended. This meant a morning walk 
with Harry, and perhaps an evening one; but 
the prospect of freedom in the interval was re- 
freshing . “Harry’ll tell everything I do, but I 
won’t do anything,” said Black Sheep. Fortified 
with this virtuous resolution, he went to school 
only to find that Harry’s version of his character 
had preceded him, and that life was a burden in 
consequence. He took stock of his associates. 
Some of them were unclean, some of them talked 


228 * BAA, BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 

in dialect, many dropped their h’s, and there 
were two Jews and a negro, or some one quite as 
dark, in the assembly. “That’s a hubshi said 
Black Sheep to himself. “Even Meeta used to 
laugh at a hubshi. I don’t think this a proper 
place.” He was indignant for at least an hour, 
till he reflected that any expostulation on his part 
would be by Aunty Rosa construed into “show- 
ing off,” and that Harry would tell the boys. 

“How do you like school?” said Aunty Rosa at 
the end of the day. 

“I think it is a very nice place,” said Punch, 
quietly. 

“I suppose you warned the boys of Black 
Sheep’s character?” said Aunty Rosa to Harry. 

“Oh, yes,” said the censor of Black Sheep’s 
morals. “They know all about him.” 

“If I was with my father,” said Black Sheep, 
stung to the quick, “I shouldn’t speak to those 
boys. He wouldn’t let me. They live in shops. 
I saw them go into shops — where their fathers 
live and sell things.” 

“You’re too good for that school, are you?” 
said Aunty Rosa, with a bitter smile. 

“You ought to be grateful, Black Sheep, that 
those boys speak to you at all. It isn’t every 
school that takes little liars.” 

Harry did not fail to make much capital out of 
Black Sheep’s ill-considered remark; with the re- 
sult that several boys, including the hubshi , dem- 


BAA , BAA f BLACK SHEEP. 


229 


onstrated to Black Sheep the eternal equality of 
the human race by smacking his head, and his 
consolation from Aunty Rosa was that it“served 
him right for being vain.” He learned, how- 
ever, to keep his opinions to himself, and by pro- 
pitiating Harry in carrying books and the like to 
secure a little peace. His existence was not too 
joyful. From nine to twelve he was at school, 
and from two to four, except on Saturdays. In 
the evenings he was sent down into the nursery 
to prepare his lessons for the next day, and every 
night came the dreaded cross-questionings at 
Harry’s hand. Of Judy he saw but little. She 
was deeply religious — at six years of age religion 
is easy to come by — and sorely divided between 
her natural love for Black Sheep and her love for 
Aunty Rosa, who could do no wrong. 

As time went on and the memory of Papa and 
Mamma became wholly overlaid by the unpleas- 
ant task of writing them letters, under Aunty 
Rosa’s eye, each Sunday, Black Sheep forgot 
what manner of life he had led in the beginning- 
of things. Even Judy’s appeals to “try and re- 
member about Bombay” failed to quicken him. 

“I can’t remember,” he said. “I know I used 
to give orders, and Mamma kissed me.” 

“Aunty Rosa will kiss you if you are good,’* 
pleaded Judy. 

“Ugh! I don’t want to be kissed by Aunty 
Rosa. She’d say I was doing it to get some- 
thing more to eat.” 


230 


BAA f BAA f BLACK SHEEP. 


The weeks lengthened into months, and the 
holidays came; but just before the holidays 
Black Sheep fell into deadly sin. 

Among the many boys whom Harry had in- 
cited to “punch Black Sheep’s head because he 
daren’t hit back,” was one more aggravating 
than the rest, who, in an unlucky moment, fell 
upon Black Sheep when Harry was not near. 
The blows stung, and Black Sheep struck back 
at random with all the power at his command. 
The boy dropped and whimpered. Black Sheep 
was astounded at his own act, but, feeling the 
unresisting body under him, shook it with both 
his hands in blind fury and then began to throttle 
his enemy; meaning honestly to slay him. There 
was a scuffle, and Black Sheep was torn off the 
body by Harry and some colleagues, and cuffed 
home, tingling but exultant. Aunty Rosa was 
out: pending her arrival, Harry sent himself to 
lecture Black Sheep on the sin of murder — which 
he described as the offence of Cain. 

“Why didn’t you fight him fair? What did 
you hit him when he was down for, you little 
cur?” 

Black Sheep looked up at Harry’s throat and 
then at a knife on the dinner-table. 

“I don’t understand,” wearily. “You always 
set him on me and told me I was a coward when 
I blubbed. Will you leave me alone until Aunty 
Rosa comes in? She’ll beat me if you tell her I 
ought to be beaten; so it’s all right.” 


BAA, BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 


231 


“It’s all wrong,” said Harry, magisterially. 
“You nearly killed him, and I shouldn’t wonder 
if he dies.” 

“Will he die?” said Black Sheep. 

“I dare say,” said Harry, “and then you’ll be 
hanged.” 

“All right,” said Black Sheep, possessing him- 
self of the table knife. “Then I’ll kill you now. 
You say things and do things and . . . and 

/ don’t know how things happen, and you never 
leave me alone — and I don’t care what happens!” 

He ran at the boy with the knife, and Harry 
fled upstairs to his room, promising Black Sheep 
the finest thrashing in the world when Aunty 
Rosa returned. Black Sheep sat at the bottom of 
the stairs, the table-knife in his hand, and wept 
for that he had not killed Harry. The servant- 
girl came up from the kitchen, took the knife 
away and consoled him. But Black Sheep was 
beyond consolation. He would be badly beaten 
by Aunty Rosa; then there would be another 
beating at Harry’s hand; then Judy would not 
be allowed to speak to him; then the tale would 
be told at school and then 

There was no one to help and no one to care, 
and the best way out of the business was by 
death. A knife would hurt, but Aunty Rosa had 
told him a year ago, that if he sucked paint he 
would die. He went into the nursery, unearthed 
the now disused Noah’s Ark, and sucked the 


BAA , BAA f BLACK SHEEP. 


232 

paint off as many animals as remained. It tasted 
abominable, but he had licked Noah’s dove clean 
by the time Aunty Rosa and Judy returned. He 1 
went upstairs and greeted them with: — “Please 
Aunty Rosa, I believe I’ve nearly killed a boy at 
school, and Fve tried to kill Harry, and when 
you-ve done 'all about God and Hell, will you 
beat me and get it over?” 

The tale of the assault as told by Harry could 
only be explained on the ground of possession by 
the Devil. Wherefore Black Sheep was not only i 
most excellently beaten, once by Aunty Rosa | 
and once, when thoroughly cowed down, by 
Harry, but he was further prayed for at family 
prayers, together with Jane who had stolen a 
cold rissole from the pantry and snuffed audibly 
as her enormity was brought before the Throne 
of Grace. Black Sheep was sore and stiff, but 
triumphant. He would die that very night and 
be rid of them all. No, he would ask for no for- 
giveness from Harry, and at bedtime would 
stand no questioning at Harry’s hands, even 
though addressed as “Young Cain.” 

“I’ve been beaten,” said he, “and I’ve done 
other things. I don’t care what I do. If you 
speak to me to-night, Plarry, I’ll get out and try 
to kill you. Now you can kill me if you like.” 

Harry took his bed into the spare-room, and 
Black Sheep lay down to die. 

It may be that the makers of Noah’s Arks 


BAA, BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 


233 


know that their animals are likely to find their 
way into young mouths, and paint them accord- 
ingly. Certain it is that the common, weary 
next morning broke through the windows and 
found Black Sheep quite well and a good deal 
ashamed of himself, but richer by the knowledge 
that he could, in extremity, secure himself against 
Harry for the future. 

When he descended to breakfast on the first 
days of 'the holidays, he was greeted with the 
news that Harry, Aunty Rosa and Judy were 
going away to Brighton, while Black Sheep was 
to stay in the house with the servant. His latest 
outbreak suited Aunty Rosa’s plans admirably. 
It gave her good excuse for leaving the extra 
boy behind. Papa in Bombay, who really seemed 
to know a young sinner’s wants to the hour, sent, 
that week, a package of new books. And with 
these and the society of Jane on board wages, 
Black Sheep was left alone for a month. 

The books lasted for ten days. They were 
eaten too quickly in long gulps of four-and- 
twenty hours at a time. Then came days of doing 
absolutely nothing, of dreaming dreams and 
marching imaginary armies up and down stairs, 
of counting the number of banisters, and of mea- 
suring the lengths and breadths of every room 
in hand-spans — fifty down the side, thirty across 
and fifty back again. Jane made many friends, 
and, after receiving Black Sheep’s assurance that 


2 34 


BAA f BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 

he would not tell of her absences, went out daily 
for long hours. Black Sheep would follow the 
rays of the sinking sun from the kitchen to the 
room until all was gray dark, and he ran down 
to the kitchen fire and read by its light He was 
happy in that he was left alone ana could read 
as much as he pleased. But, later, he grew afraid 
of the shadows of window-curtains and the flap- 
ping of doors and the creaking of shutters. He 
went out into the garden, and.the rustling of the 
laurel bushes frightened him. 

He was glad when they all returned — Aunty 
Rosa, Harry and Judy — full of news and Judy 
laden with gifts. Who could help loving loyal 
little Judy? In return for all her merry babble- 
ment, Black Sheep confided to her that the dis- 
tance from the hall door to the top of the first 
landing was exactly one hundred and eighty-four 
hand-spans. He had found it out himself. 

Then the old life recommenced; but with a dif- 
ference and a new sin. To his other iniquities 
Black Sheep had now added a phenomenal clum- 
siness — was as unfit to trust in action as he was 
in word. He himself could not account for spill- 
ing everything he touched, upsetting glasses as 
he put his hand out, and bumping his head 
against doors that were manifestly shut. There 
was a gray haze upon all his world, and it nar- 
rowed month by month, until at last it left Black 
Sheep almost alone with the flapping curtains 


BAA , BAA , 5L^CA: SHEEP. 


235 


that were so like ghosts, and the nameless terrors 
of broad daylight that were only coats on pegs 
after all. 

Holidays came and holidays went, and Black 
Sheep was taken to see many people whose faces 
were all exactly alike; was beaten when occasion 
demanded, arid tortured by Harry on all possible 
occasions, but defended by Judy through good 
and evil report, though she thereby drew upon 
herself the wrath of Aunty Rosa. 

The weeks were interminable, and Papa and 
Mamma were clean forgotten. Harry had left 
school and was a clerk in a Banking Office. 
Freed from his presence, Black Sheep resolved 
that he should no longer be deprived of his 
allowance of pleasure-reading. Consequently, 
when he failed at school he reported that all was 
well, and conceived a large contempt for Aunty 
Rosa, as he saw how easy it was to deceive her. 
“She says I’m a little liar when I don’t tell lies, 
and now I do, she doesn’t know,” thought Black 
Sheep. Aunty Rosa had credited him in the past 
with petty cunning and stratagem that had never 
entered into his head. By the light of the sordid 
knowledge that she had revealed to him he paid 
her back full tale. In a household where the 
most innocent of his motives, his natural yearn- 
ings for a little affection, had been interpreted 
into a desire for more bread and jam or to in- 
gratiate himself with strangers and so put Harry 


BAA , BAA f BLACK SHEEP. 


236 

into the background, his work was easy. Aunty 
Rosa could penetrate certain kinds of hypocrisy, 
but not all. He set his child’s wits against hers 
and was no more beaten. It grew monthly more 
and more of a trouble to read the schoolbooks, 
and even the pages of the open-print story-books 
danced and were dim. So Black Sheep brooded 
in the shadows that fell about him and cut him 
off from the world, inventing horrible punish- 
ments for “dear Harry,” or plotting another line 
of the tangled web of deception that he wrapped 
round Aunty Rosa. 

Then the crash came and the cobwebs were 
broken. It was impossible to foresee everything. 
Aunty Rosa made personal inquiries as to Black 
Sheep’s progress and received information that 
startled her. Step by step, with a delight as 
keen as when she convicted an underfed house- 
maid of thefts of cold meats, she followed the 
trail of Black Sheeps’ delinquencies. For weeks 
and weeks, in order to escape banishment from 
the book-shelves, he had made a fool of Aunty 
Rosa, of Harry, of God, of all the world! Hor- 
rible, most horrible, and evidence of an utterly 
depraved mind. 

Black Sheep counted the cost. “It will only 
be one big beating and then she’ll put a card 
with Tiar’ on my back, same as she did before. 
Harry will whack me and pray for me, and she 
will pray for me at prayers and tell me I’m a 


BAA, BAA } BLACK SHEEP. 


237 


Child of the Devil and give me hymns to learn. 
But I’ve done all my reading and she never 
knew. She’ll say she knew all along. She’s an 
old liar too,” said he. 

For three days Black Sheep was shut in his 
own bedroom — to prepare his heart. “That 
means two beatings. One at school and one here. 
That one will hurt most.” And it fell even as he 
thought. He was thrashed at school before the 
Jews and the hubshi, for the heinous crime of 
bringing home false reports of progress. He was 
thrashed at home by Aunty Rosa on the same 
count, and then the placard was produced. 
Aunty Rosa stitched it between his shoulders and 
bade him go for a walk with it upon him. 

“If you make me do that,” said Black Sheep 
very quietly, “I shall burn this house down, and 
perhaps I’ll kill you. I don’t know whether I 
can kill you — you’re so bony — but I’ll try.” 

No punishment followed this blasphemy, 
though Black Sheep held himself ready to work 
his way to Aunty Rosa’s withered throat, and 
grip there till he was beaten off. Perhaps Aunty 
Rosa was afraid, for Black Sheep, having reached 
the Nadir of Sin, bore himself with a new reck- 
lessness. 

In the midst of all the trouble there came a 
visitor from over the seas to Downe Lodge, who 
knew Papa and Mamma, and was commissioned 
to see Punch and Judy. Black Sheep was sent 


BAA f BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 


238 

to the drawing-room and charged into a solid 
tea-table laden with china. 

“Gently, gently, little man,” said the visitor, 
turning Black Sheep’s face to the light slowly. 
“What’s that big bird on the palings?” 

“What bird?” asked Black Sheep. 

The visitor looked deep down into Black 
Sheep’s eyes for half a minute, and then said 
suddenly: — “Good God, the little chap’s nearly 
blind!” 

It was a most business-like visitor. He gave 
orders, on his own responsibility, that Black 
Sheep was not to go to school or open a book 
until Mamma came home. “She’ll be here in 
three weeks, as you know, of course,” said he, 
“and I’m Inverarity Sahib. I ushered you into 
this wicked world, young man, and a nice use 
you seem to have made of your time. You must 
do nothing whatever. Can you do that?” 

“Yes,” said Punch in a dazed way. He had 
known that Mamma was coming. There was a 
chance, then, of another beating. Thank Heaven, 
Papa wasn’t coming, too. Aunty Rosa had said 
of late that he ought to be beaten by a man. 

For the next three weeks Black Sheep was 
strictly allowed to do nothing. He spent his time 
in the old nursery looking at the broken toys, for 
all of which account must be rendered to 
Mamma. Aunty Rosa hit him over the hands if 
even a wooden boat was broken. But that sin 


BAA, BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 


239 


was of small importance compared to the other 
revelations, so darkly hinted at by Aunty Rosa. 
“When your Mother comes, and hears what I 
have to tell her, she may appreciate you prop- 
erly/’ she said grimly, and mounted guard over 
Judy lest that small maiden should attempt to 
comfort her brother, to the peril of her own soul. 

And Mamma came — in a four-wheeler and a 
flutter of tender excitement. Such a Mamma! 
She was young, frivolously young, and beautiful, 
with delicately flushed cheeks, eyes that shone 
like stars, and a voice that needed no additional 
appeal of outstretched arms to draw little ones to 
her heart. Judy ran straight to her, but Black 
Sheep hesitated. Could this wonder be “show- 
ing-off”? She would not put out her arms when 
she knew of his crimes. Meantime was it possible 
that by fondling she wanted to get anything out 
of Black Sheep? Only all his love and all his 
confidence; but that Black Sheep did not know. 
Aunty Rosa withdrew and left Mamma, kneeling 
between her children, half laughing, half crying, 
in the very hall where Punch and Judy had wept 
five years before. 

“Well, chicks, do you remember me?” 

“No,” said Judy, frankly, “but I said ‘God 
bless Papa and Mamma ev’vy night.” 

“A little,” said Black Sheep. “Remember I 
wrote to you every week, anyhow. That isn’t to 
show off, but ’cause of what comes afterwards.” 


240 


BAA, BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 

“What comes after! What should come after, 
my darling boy?” And she drew him to her 
again. He came awkwardly, with many angles. 
“Not used to petting,” said the quick Mother 
soul. “The girl is.” 

“She’s too little to hurt any one,” thought 
Black Sheep, “and if I said I’d kill her, she’d be 
afraid. I wonder what Aunty Rosa will tell.” 

There was a constrained late dinner, at the end 
of which Mamma picked up Judy and put her to 
bed with endearments manifold. Faithless little 
Judy had shown her defection from Aunty Rosa 
already. And that lady resented it bitterly. 
Black Sheep rose to leave the room. 

“Come and say good-night,” said Aunty Rosa, 
offering a withered cheek. 

“Huh!” said Black Sheep. “I never kiss you, 
and I’m not going to show off. Tell that woman 
what I’ve done, and see what she says.” 

Black Sheep climbed into bed feeling that he 
had lost Heaven after a glimpse through the 
gates. In half an hour “that woman” was bend- 
ing over him. Black Sheep flung up his right 
arm. It wasn’t fair to come and hit him in the 
dark. Even Aunty Rosa never tried that. But 
no blow followed. 

“Are you showing off? I won’t tell you any- 
thing more than Aunty Rosa has, and she doesn’t 
know everything,” said Black Sheep as clearly as 
he could for the arms round his neck. 


BAA, BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 


241 


. “Oh, my son — my little, little son! It was my 
fault — my fault, darling — and yet how could we 
help it? Forgive me, Punch.” The voice died 
out in a broken whisper, and two hot tears fell 
on Black Sheep’s forehead. 

“Has he been making you cry too?” he asked. 
“You should see Jane cry. But you’re nice, and 
Jane is a Born Liar — Aunty Rosa says so.” 

“Hush, Punch, hush ! My boy, don’t talk like 
that. Try to love me a little bit — a little bit. 
You don’t know how I want it. Punch -baba, 
come back to me ! I am your Mother — your own 
Mother — and never mind the rest. I know — yes, 
I know, dear. It doesn’t matter now. Punch, 
won’t you care for me a little?” 

It is astonishing how much petting a big boy 
of ten can endure when he is quite sure that there 
is no one to laugh at him. Black Sheep had 
never been made much of before, and here was. 
this beautiful woman treating — Black Sheep, the 
Child of the Devil and the Inheritor of Undying: 
Flame — as though he were a small God. 

“I care for you a great deal, Mother dear,” he 
whispered at last, “and I’m glad you’ve come 
back; but are you sure Aunty Rosa told you 
everything?” 

“Everything. What does it matter? But — ” 
the voice broke with a sob that was also laughter 
— “Punch, my poor, dear, half-blind darling, 
don’t you think it was a little foolish of you?” 

No. “It saved a lickin’.” 


242 


BAA, BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 


Mamma shuddered and slipped away in the 
darkness to write a long letter to Papa. Here is 
an extract: — 

. Judy is a dear, plump little prig who 
adores the woman, and wears with as much 
gravity as her religious opinions — only eight, 
Jack! — a venerable horsehair atrocity which she 
calls her Bustle! I have just burnt it, and the 
child is asleep in my bed as I write. She will 
come to me at once. Punch I cannot quite un- 
derstand. He is well nourished, but seems to 
have been worried into a system of small decep- 
tions which the woman magnifies into deadly 
sins. Don’t you recollect our own up-bringing, 
dear, when the Fear of the Lord was so often the 
beginning of falsehood? I shall win Punch to 
me before long. I am taking the children away 
into the country to get them to know me, and, 
on the whole, I am content, or shall be when you 
come home, dear boy, and, then, thank God, we 
shall be all under one roof again at last! 

Three months later Punch, no longer Black 
Sheep, has discovered that he is the veritable 
owner of a real, live, lovely Mamma, who is also 
a sister, comforter and friend, and that he must 
protect her till the Father comes home. Decep- 
tion does not suit the part of a protector, and, 
when one can do anything without question, 
where is the use of deception? 

“Mother would be awfully cross if you walked 


BAA, BAA , BLACK SHEEP. 


243 


through that ditch,” says Judy, continuing a 
concersation. 

“Mother’s never angry,” says Punch. “She’d 
just say, “You’re a little pagal;’ and that’s not 
nice, but I’ll show.” 

Punch walks through the ditch and mires him- 
self to the knees. “Mother, dear,” he shouts, 
“I’m just as dirty as I can pos-sib-ly be!” 

“Then change your clothes as quickly as you 
possib-ly can!” rings out Mother’s clear voice 
from the house. “And don’t be a little pcigcill” 

“There! Told you so,” says Punch. “It’s all 
different now, and we are just as much Mother’s, 
as if she had never gone.” 

Not altogether, O Punch, for when young lips 
have drunk deep of the bitter waters of Hate, 
Suspicion and Despair, all the Love in the world 
will not wholly take away that knowledge 
though it may turn darkened eyes for a while to 
the light, and teach Faith where no Faith was. 



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MOTHER, by Hesba Stretton. 

95 THE THRONE OF GRACE. 

96 STEPS INTO THE BLESSED LIFE, by Rev. F. B. 

Meyer. 

97 ADVENTURES OF A BROWNIE, by Miss Mulock. 

98 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK OF HOLY SCRIP- 

TURE, by Hon. W. E. Gladstone. 

99 PATHWAY OF PROMISE. 

100 PATHWAY OF SAFETY, by Rt. Rev. Ashton Ox- 

enden. 

101 KIDNAPPED, by Robert Louis Stevenson. 

102 THE PRINCE OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID, by 

Rev. J. H. Ingraham. 

103 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE, by Rt. Rev. Ashton Ox- 

enden. 

104 THE MESSAGE OF PEACE, by Rev R. W. Church. 

105 PEEP OF DAY. Or a Series of the Earliest Relig- 

ious Instruction the Infant Mind is Capable of 
Receiving. 

106 LINE UPON LINE. Or a Second Series of the Ear- 

liest Religious Instruction the Infant Mind is 
Capable of Receiving. 

107 PRECEPT UPON PRECEPT. By the author of 

“The Peep of Day,” “Line Upon Line,” “Pre- 
cept Upon Precept,” etc. 

108 TANGLEWOOD TALES, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

109 THE SONG OF HIAWATHA, by Henry Wadsworth 

Longfellow. 


ALTEMUS’ ETERNAL LIFE SERIES. 


Selections from the writings of well-known religious authors, 
printed and daintily bound with original designs 
in silver and ink. 


Price, 25 cents per volume. 


j ETERNAL LIFE, by Professor Henry Drummond. 

2 LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY, by Rev. Andrew Murray. 

3 GOD’S WORD AND GOD'S WORK, by Martin Luther. 

4 FAITH, by Thomas Arnold. 

5 THE CREATION STORY, by Honorable William E. Gladstone. 

6 THE MESSAGE OF COMFORT, by Rt. Rev. Ashton Oxenden. 

7 THE MESSAGE OF PEACE, by Rev. R. \V. Church. 

8 THE LORD’S PRAYER AND THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, by 

Dean Stanley. 

9 THE MEMOIRS OF JESUS, by Rev. Robert F . Horton. 

10 HYMNS OF PRAISE AND GLADNESS, by Elisabeth R. Scovil. 

11 DIFFICULTIES, by Hannah Whitall Smith. 

12 GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING, by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 

13 HAVE FAITH IN GOD, by Rev. Andrew Murray. 

14 TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY, by Rev. Henry Ward 

Beecher. 

15 THE CHRIST IN WHOM CHRISTIANS BELIEVE, by Rt. Rev. 

Phillips Brooks. 

16 IN MY NAME, by Rev. Andrew Murray. 

17 SIX WARNINGS, by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 

18 THE DUTY OF THE CHRISTIAN BUSINESS MAN, by Rt. Rev. 

Phillips Brooks. 

19 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS, by Rev. Henry YVard Beecher. 

20 TRUE LIBERTY, by Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks. 

21 INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS, by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 

22 THE BEAUTY OF A LIFE OF SERVICE, by Rt. Rev. Phillips 

Brooks. 

23 THE SECOND COMING OF OUR LORD, by Rev. A.T.Pierson, D.D. 

24 THOUGHT AND ACTION, by Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks. 

25 THE HEAVENLY VISION, by Rev. F. B. Meyer. 

26 MORNING STRENGTH, by Elisabeth R. Scovil. 

27 FOR THE QUIET HOUR, by Edith V. Bradc. 

28 EVENING COMFORT, by Elisabeth K. Scovil. 

29 WORDS OF HELP FOR CHRISTIAN GIRLS, by Rev. F. B. Meyer. 

30 HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE, by Rev. Dwight L. Moody. 

31 EXPECTATION CORNER, by E. S. Elliot. 

32 JESSICA’S FIRST PRAYER, by Hesba Stretton. 

33 JESSICA’S MOTHER, by Hesba Stretton. 

84 THE GREATEST THIN GIN TH E YV O RL D, by Henry Drummond. 

85 HOW TO LEARN HOW, by Henry Drummond. 

86 WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN ? THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE; A 

TALK ON BOOKS, by Henry Drummond. 



8? g 3 


ALTEMUS’ ETERNAL LIFE SERIES— Continued 


PAX VO BISCUM, by Henry Drummond. 

THE CHANGED LIFE, by Henry Drummond. 

FIRST I A TALK WITH BOYS, by Henry Drummond. 


ALTEMUS’ BELLES-LETTRES SERIES. 


A collection of Essays and Addresses by Eminent English 
and American Authors, beautifully printed 
and daintily bound, with original 
designs in silver inks. 


Price, 25 cents per volume. 


1 INDEPENDENCE DAY, by Rev. Edward E. Hale. 

2 THE SCHOLAR IN POLITICS, by Hon. Richard Olney. 

3 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS, by Edward W. Bok. 

4 THE YOUNG MAN AND THE CHURCH, by Edward W. Bok. 

5 THE SPOILS SYSTEM, by Hon. Carl Schurz. 

6 CONVERSATION, by Thomas DeQuincey. 

7 SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, by Matthew Arnold. 

8 WORK, by John Ruskin. 

9 N ATURE AND ART, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

10 THE USE AND MISUSE OF BOOKS, by Frederic Harrison. 

11 THE MONROE DOCTRINE : ITS ORIGIN, MEANING AND 

APPLICATION, by Prof. John Bach McMaster (University of 
Pennsylvania) 

12 THE DESTINY OF MAN, by Sir John Lubbock. 

13 LOVE AND FR1EN DSHIP, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

14 RIP VAN WINKLE, by Washington Irving. 

15 ART, POETRY AN D MUSIC, by Sir John Lubbock. 

16 THE CHOICE OF BOOKS, by Sir John Lubbock. 

17 MANNERS, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

18 CHARACTER, by Ralph Waldo Emerson . 

19 THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW, by Washington Irving. 

20 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE, by Sir John Lubbock. 

21 SELF RELIANCE, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

22 THE DUTY OF HAPPINESS, by Sir John Lubbock. 

23 SPIRITUAL LAWS, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. ^ 

24 OLD CHRISTMAS, by Washington Irving. 

25 HEALTH, WEALTH AND THE BLESSING OF FRIENDS, by 

Sir J olm Lu bbock. 

26 INTELLECT, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

27 WHY AMERICAN'S DiSLIKE ENGLAND? by Prof. George B. 

Adams (Yale). 

28 THE HIGHER EDUCATION AS A TRAINING FOR BUSINESS 

by Prof. Harry Pratt Judson (University of Chicago). 

29 MISS TOOSEY’S MISSION. 

30 LADDIE. 

31 J. COLE, by Emma Gellibrand. 

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